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by queuep 1543 days ago
I usually have my phone under my pillow when I sleep, is this a bad idea? I’ve done this the last 10 years or so.

I always scroll websites until I fall asleep, and then my phone ends up somewhere in the bed, usually under my pillow

3 comments

Staring at electronic displays is generally considered unhelpful for trying to get to sleep due to both the light and rapid-attention span activities, having it under the pillow is probably equally harmless as the dozen other EMF sources around your bedroom.

Unless the lithium battery catches fire. That might be bad for you.

Nobody can say, with any justifiable confidence, whether it is a bad idea. Maybe you will find out.

But there is quite a lot of research suggesting that doomscrolling in bed is psychologically harmful. Leave the phone in the other room, for sanity's sake.

I have yet to see any evidence for it doing harm or seen anything pointing towards a mechanism for harm. Not only is your phone transceiver pretty weak, usually 3W or less, but it is also running far below even visible light on the EM spectrum. If we aren't concerned about a 3 watt LED shining light on you, I don't think there is any reason to worry about far less energetic EM waves. And people have been trying to find proof of harmful effects from low level radio emissions since radio transceivers were invented. If there is an effect at all, which has yet to be shown, it must be absolutely minuscule to go completely unknown despite endless studies on it.
Your ignorance of an effect is not the same as lack of effect. And, your demonstrated entire ignorance of the mechanism of absorption of radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation in living tissue inspires no confidence in your judgment.

Nothing so reliably induces non-biologists to insist they are certain of facts no competent biologist would confidently speculate on as talk of microwave radiation.