Following up on the Unplug to Uplift webinar we’ve assembled a List of Resources on some of the adverse impacts of technology on children and ways to mitigate the harms.

Many people can sense that tech and over reliance on screens negatively impact our children, and studies and data increasingly corroborate this felt sense. But many people still don’t know that wireless radiation (RF) from smart phones, tablets etc. also adversely affects the mental and physical well-being of children.

This list of resources includes both mechanisms of harm – screentime and wireless radiation.

Sadly, according to and excellent Epoch Times article only 1 in 10 children play outside even once a week, choosing rather to spend their time indoors on a screen. Our kids are missing out on developing essential life skills while their physical and mental health decline.

We trust you will find these resources useful and will consider incorporating some of what you learn into your own life and that of your children. After all, our kids are our future.

List of Resources on Children and Technology

Unplug to Uplift Webinar Recording

Unplug to Uplift: Aching for a Tech Safe Society

List of Speakers on the Unplug to Uplift Webinar (List includes their websites, books, Substacks etc.

For up-to-date resources, info, and commentary on all-things-tech please check out
Patricia’s Substack for Safe Tech International.

Musicians today must be “Jacks of all trades” when it comes to navigating the predominantly internet-connected world of technology. They interact with complex stage rigs that include wireless products, are involved in digital music production and must sustain social media engagement with fans. Musicians use an array of digital technologies to survive in the music industry. The question that is beginning to be asked as they are increasingly exposed to the technological demands of the music industry is “how is this affecting health and wellbeing?”

It is a vitally important question, especially as stage performances have grown in both stature and scale and have become resonant electromagnetically driven events and environments that are not without their risks to audiences and musicians. On stage wireless devices can remove the need for cables and are appealing to musicians who believe they remove onstage hazards and promote mobility. Audiences continue their social media pursuits and technological voyeurism through their wireless smart phones. Wireless stage lighting rigs utilise electromagnetically powerful LED systems where spotlights shine brighter than ever and stage atmospherics are remotely controllable. These technological realities are sold as progress – sold as “better.” Yet, as this article reveals, such technologies create hazards kept out of the marketing and hype, leaving professionals and consumers neglectful of technological radiation and its health impacts.

Powerful wireless devices from “smart” stage lighting apparatus to wireless microphones, guitars and amplification systems introduce man-made electromagnetic fields (EMFs) into performances which are a form of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) and electromagnetic interference (EMI).

The dense cocktail of wireless radiation from digital devices can interfere with guitar signal quality and microphone latency, for example, and from a health perspective actively alters us at the cellular electrochemical level when we are exposed to it. EMR also has bearing on mental health.

Wireless devices have both analogue and digital variants that emit radiofrequency radiation (RFR) that has a non-native electrical charge that is absorbed into the body. The digital systems transmit coherent digitally pulsed RFR, like Blutooth and Wi-Fi does. Scientists note that “An internal EM field is induced in the tissue when a biological tissue is exposed to RF waves” from electronic devices. This can cause physiological as well as “mental and psychological effects.”

As digital wireless technology infiltrates the professional and consumer markets of amplification and musical instrument systems the potential to sustain physiological and neurological injury amidst the densification of legacy and novel wireless technologies in our environment increases. Macular degeneration, Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) and harmful digital addiction are just a few of the potential consequences of working in today’s electromagnetically intensified digital environments.

With awareness of the problems faced in today’s technological landscape informed choices concerning technological implementations onstage (and in the home or studio) can be made to avert serious miscalculations that could impact the health and wellbeing of consumers, audiences, musicians, road crews, event staff and stage performers.

The Potential Impacts of Digital Stage Lighting on Health

Stage lighting has always had an important function. It directs audience attention and can captivate the eye and imagination to create “immersive experiences” that deeply affect an audience’s emotions.

However, recent digital lighting developments can affect our experiences in other ways. LED stage lighting, like the powerfully “blinding” LED headlights of cars, can cause visual and cognitive disturbances. The most common impacts experienced are from “discomfort glare.” Optical radiation from LEDs “could potentially damage the eyes and skin depending on many variables like the duration of exposure, the wavelength and the intensity of the light.”

“…discomfort glare occurs in the presence of uncomfortable luminance contrasts in the visual field. It is experienced as visual discomfort without necessarily an impaired ability to see. Discomfort glare has been associated with fluctuations in pupil size…as well as contractions in the muscles surrounding the eye that may cause pain effects…. It is believed that the pupil, lens, facial and extra-ocular muscles are engaged in a constant pursuit of retinal image clarity, and this continuous muscle readjustment can cause discomfort, tension and pain….Discomfort glare can manifest itself through annoyance, irritability, distraction and visual fatigue or eyestrain. Typical symptoms include soreness of the eyes, dry or watery eyes, itchiness, blurred or double vision, difficulty to focus on objects, irritation of the eyes and lids, tense muscles, as well as headaches and other forms of discomfort such as neck- and backache….Discomfort glare has also been linked with adverse effects on mood and wellbeing….Notwithstanding that discomfort glare varies within the same space depending on the position and direction of view….there are also significant individual differences in sensitivity. Some people may be unaware of, or undisturbed by, glaring lighting, whilst others in the same space may experience discomfort symptoms….People suffering from migraines are more sensitive to light than other people, even when they are not experiencing a headache, and hence they are more likely to experience glare or not tolerate bright light….”

Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14771535211021064

Everyone understands LEDs have exceptional brightness; it is generally perceived as an advantage because of persuasive marketing. They emit optical radiation from a flat semi-conductive “chip” that converts electricity into high energy light through a process called electroluminescence. Such bright light can cause eye strain and eye damage, headaches and disturb sleep owing to the intensity of the semiconductor-generated short-wave artificial blue light.

This artificially produced optical radiation is so powerful it effectively suppresses melatonin (a hormone promoting sleep), while it dramatically raises melanopsin ( a hormone promoting alertness). The effects of artificial blue light exposure on sleep are more obvious at night, so performers shouldn’t be surprised if disturbed sleep becomes an issue. Children and teenagers are more sensitive to electronic blue light (as are people with light hypersensitivity, a.k.a. photophobia). This type of blue light can trigger mania in people suffering with bipolar disorder.

Many professional musicians have been diagnosed bipolar (which also increases their risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, according to a longitudinal study published in Neurology). In the scientific article titled “Shedding Light on Light”: A Review on the Effects on Mental Health of Exposure to Optical Radiation, it’s observed that, “…light pollution may play a role in the genesis of bipolar disorder.” A further article published in Nature further emphasises the correlation of artificial light’s influence on mental health and bipolar disorder. The study, published in 2023, found that, “Greater night-time light exposure was associated with increased risk for major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, psychosis, bipolar disorder, and self-harm behavior.”

Anxiety, depression and sleep orders are commonly experienced by musicians and performers. Electromagnetic radiation/optical radiation from LED lighting (used on stage, in smart phone and computer screens) is an extremely common environmental factor that can play a role in sleep and mental health issues as described. A study published in 2021 called “Medical phenome of musicians: an investigation of health records collected on 9803 musically active individuals” reminds us that, “the health risks and benefits of music participation and professional music activities has not yet been studied comprehensively…therefore, our understanding of the scope and prevalence of physical and mental health problems in musicians is limited.” The role of electromagnetic radiation in understanding that “scope and prevalence” shouldn’t be excluded from a truly comprehensive investigation.

With musicians and stage performers encountering heightened exposures to LED lighting, eye and mental health become major concerns. LED optical radiation with its characteristic blue light frequency range ages retinal cells. “Excessive exposure of the eye to blue light tends to cause a series of alterations, such as oxidative stress, mitochondrial apoptosis, inflammatory apoptosis, mitochondrial apoptosis and DNA damage, resulting in the development of dry eye disease, glaucoma, and keratitis.” Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343440541_Mechanisms_of_blue_light-induced_eye_hazard_and_protective_measures_a_review

Even for the musician at home or on the road, the “evening darkness is more illuminated by blue light emitting diodes. These blue lights come from energy efficient bulbs and flat-screen computers, phones, and TVs” influencing potential circadian dysfunction and eyesight problems. Stage performers can be exposed to excessive amounts of high contrast artificial lighting from light rig setups, night after night in some cases. Many of the stage lighting systems, such as LED Pixel Tube Lights, and moving head lights for example, can be wirelessly operated using apps such as “Stagelight“, for example, so obviously will result in more wireless radiation in a stage performance.

The phenomenal glare from LED flood lights with high-intensity beams can cause immense discomfort, especially for people suffering with glaucoma. Stage performer Bono from the band U2 wears light filtering shades because he has developed glaucoma (a progressive eye disease caused by damage to the optic nerve). Glaucoma endangers sight from a buildup of pressure in the eyeball (intraoccular pressure) impacting the optic nerve. The condition can lead to blindness if left untreated. Photophobia (extreme light sensitivity) is experienced by people with glaucoma which can be caused by LED light, including the LED glare from digital device screens which is rich in artificial blue light (which can eventually change the shape of the eyeball). According to a study published in 2018, “Because of blue light’s short wavelength, the focus is not located in the center of the retina but rather in the front of the retina, so that the long exposure time to blue light causes a worsening of visual fatigue and nearsightedness [myopia].”

The impact of digital LED lighting is greatly amplified against surrounding darkness, bringing visual discomfort. When added to screen exposure in daily life this all becomes a considerable health burden. Yellow tinted shades or photochromic glasses are thought to be effective at filtering out blue light and these are often worn by Bono, as we know. However, as Cleveland Health Clinic reports, “a 2019 report from the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) warned of the “phototoxic effects” of blue light exposure, including an increased risk for age-related macular degeneration. The report also noted that blue light blocking glasses and filters may not protect against these and other harmful effects.”

LED lighting poses a health risk to performers and audiences. Looking at high energy stage lighting, digital signage and smart phone screens presents risks to eyesight. The glare from bright digital lighting and smart phone screens can also trigger migraine symptoms. Smart phones are regarded as a significant “public health hazard” according to John Gottlieb, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine.

The largely imperceptible flicker of LED lights (which is also a feature of digital device screens) also presents a health risk, for “research suggests that it can have detrimental effects on health and safety.” The deliberate use of repetitive strobing with intense rhythmic glare at performances, takes this health and safety risk to another level. Flicker and strobing of LED lighting can potentially cause seizures or dizziness (especially at 3–50 Hz), particularly in people with photosensitive epilepsy.

(As a side note, the strobing of LED lighting has been weaponised for Homeland Security, for flicker rates can be calibrated. They are a form of supposedly non-lethal “active denial” system (ADS) and have made the consumer market too). They are a reminder that the intensity of LED lighting radiation can have a dramatic impact on us, but not only that, we gain a sense of the ethically debauched market for LED light-based products.

As a second side note, lasers (semiconductor radiation like LEDs) have also made an appearance on stage for dramatic and high-tech effects using narrowly focused (collimated) beams of coherent light. Laser beams have hit the consumer market too. Laser pointers are an example and remarkably these instruments are deemed “legal and safe to use.” In a music festival incident it was reported that a pilot was blinded by such a device as the audience pointed their devices at the sky. Yet lasers continue to be pointed towards the sky at many public events, regardless.

Intense light whether it comes from lasers or related products like LEDs is a health issue that affects everyone according to their individual sensitivity. “Flashing, flickering and repetitive patterns cause the visual cortex to be overloaded with images and this can cause a seizure in people who are sensitive to this trigger.” People with photophobia are also susceptible to painful reactions when exposed to high energy digital lighting.

Powerful lighting can also negatively impact people with electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) especially as high output LED lights (used in outdoor lighting or on stage) can produce “dirty electricity”, a type of EMF pollution. A stage, and even a production studio can be awash with electromagnetic frequencies from amplifiers, guitars, wireless equipment (especially badly grounded equipment) influencing dirty electricity levels (electrical pollution) that can affect sound quality and has the potential to impact the health of performers over time.

You can learn more about health risks of high LED light from excellent resources here and here. As you will discover, the optical radiation is toxic and their ingredients are too. Impacts of falling lights on stage present a health hazard based on contact with or ingestion of their ingredients in particular.

Performers strike back

Performers are voicing their displeasure concerning the visibility of digital devices for they can impact a performance. A sea of glowing smart devices can be very distracting to music industry artists seeking to make an emotional connection with the audience. In 2014, the artist Kate Bush, “put out a message on her website asking fans to refrain from taking photographs or videos during the show: “I very much want to have contact with you as an audience, not with iPhones, iPads or cameras.”” It was a message that clearly worked as the reviewer reported “…it’s hard to know whether it was the lack of phones…but the connection was unlike other gig experiences.” Bush’s frustrations are shared by other performers.

Other performers are more frustrated. The BBC reported that, “A leading composer has called for people who use mobile phones during concerts to be fined” calling the use of smart phones at performances “distracting and discourteous”. The composer’s “…view of discourteous mobile users is widely-shared within the classical music community.”

The tenor Ian Bostridge shocked Symphony Hall Birmingham when he “requested that audience members turn off their phone cameras. He said taking photographs was ‘extremely distracting’ for a performer.”

What is it like for people in the audience grappling with this issue? You can read more on that perspective in “Smartphones are ruining concerts” published in The Washington Post.

Wireless radiation from microphones and guitar systems

There are digital and analogue wireless systems, for guitars and microphones. Both are different and “untether” a performer from cables allowing for freedom of movement, removal of trip hazards and enhanced audience interactions.

Analogue wireless systems work differently from digital and incur extra expense as they require a bandwidth license, so are not as popular as digital ones nowadays, which predominantly use the same bandwidth as consumer Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Many high-end microphone manufacturers still offer analogue systems, which still have certain advantages over digital systems.

Analogue systems use a compression system called “companding” which utilises a larger bandwidth (UHF frequency band) than digital counterparts. For this reason they don’t suffer the same latency or signal deficiency issues plaguing many digital systems and have a wide dynamic range. In stage performances since the 1970’s these types of analogue systems were pioneered by artists such as Angus Young, guitarist in the band AC/DC and artist Kate Bush, for example with countless stage performers following suit. (You can read about Angus Young’s wireless system here.)

Analogue microphone systems were liberally utilised by the broadcasting corporations where analogue wireless lavalier microphones were worn on talk shows, for example, by the host and the guest performers.

Most digital wireless microphones and guitar systems used today operate within the frequency band of 2.4 GHz (similar to Wi-Fi) and 5.8 GHz (high frequency). These digital products emit pulsed radiofrequency radiation (RFR), “and encode sound as a digital signal—zeroes and ones—that modulate a radio carrier signal, which is then sent over the air and picked up by a receiver, where that signal is converted back to sound.”

You can invest in a dedicated wireless microphone system, or you can convert an existing standard microphone into a digital wireless microphone. Wireless digital transmitter accessories are available that plug right into the microphone’s XLR socket.

The 2.4 GHz –5.8 GHz used by digital microphone and guitar systems is an oversubscribed bandwidth so latency and quality issues can become an issue sometimes, especially for more affordable systems aimed at the consumer. This is the high frequency unlicensed consumer bandwidth in which many scientific studies concerning the influence of man-made electromagnetic fields on dementia and cancer have been performed.

The fact remains that the digital frequencies are more impacting to health the closer you are to the emitting radiating source, for example, a Wi-Fi router in the home, transmitter in a smart phone, or a wireless microphone transmitter, or any other wireless transmitter plugged into a guitar system or other stage equipment.

Are wireless microphone headsets and earphone systems harmful?

As mentioned there are quality trade offs between digital and analogue microphone systems. Wireless microphone headsets are being worn by some performers on stage to enhance mobility. They are particularly useful for guitarists that sing backing vocals in a band. For example, since 2009 the guitarist from U2, the Edge, has used a “wireless headset mic so he can sing and work the stage.”

For a high-end digital wireless headset, the radiofrequency band ranges from 2.4 GHz – 5 GHz which is similar to widely available Bluetooth headsets. The wireless headsets used in the music industry often have an omnidirectional condenser earset microphone and use a rackmount receiver unit and the headset is wired to a body-pack transmitter unit that accepts a battery. The musician is exposed to the resulting EM fields.

Some disturbing findings have come to light concerning radiation from headsets. Like regular mobile phones, digital wireless headsets focus RF radiation on the body where it is absorbed into tissues in the near field (close range). Depending on the headset, this is focused on the head or the body, where the transmitter is broadcasting. Any electrically active device on the head, even if wired to the transmitter pack, also creates an electromagnetic field absorbed into the skull and surrounding tissues.

In 2024 neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman from Stanford University brought “significant attention to the potential health implications of Bluetooth technology” after he discontinued use of Bluetooth headphones, prompting “both the public and the scientific community to reexamine the risks associated with these everyday gadgets.” His concern is over the thermal sensations and the EMF emissions, observing the correlation of recurrent lymph cysts appearing behind his ears following use. As Headphonesty reports, “The issue subsided when he stopped using the headphones, but recurred when he resumed their use. This cycle led him to conclude a potential link between the headphones and the cysts, prompting him to abandon them altogether…“Heat and neural tissue are not friends,” he stated, emphasizing the potential risks of exposing such sensitive areas to continuous warmth.”

Airpods are another form of wireless headphone unit. “If one uses AirPods many hours a day, the cumulative exposure to the brain from this microwave radiation could be substantial,” Joel Moskowitz, Director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Family and Community Health stated.”

RF radiation from any wireless headset or ear-set is absorbed into tissues at very close range. Thermal effects can become noticeable during use. Biological impacts are inevitable, and may become problematic for health over time. DNA damage can be induced by daily use of radiofrequency devices and some scientific uncertainty remains about the latency periods of RFR-induced health effects such as cancer.

The concerned public and hundreds of scientists are beginning to speak out about the radiation impacts from devices such as wireless headsets and earphones, which can only be a good thing. Precautionary principles and independent research are important when it comes to weighing up whether RFR-emitting gear is necessarily worthwhile, or healthy. If your health is more important than having unlimited mobility across the expanse of the stage, studio, or home, you might want to stick with cables and ditch the idea of a wireless headset.

Keeping RFR away from your head

As Environmental Health Trust (EHT) reports, “Over one dozen governments and numerous medical organizations warn you to keep this type of radiation called radiofrequency radiation [RFR] away from your head.“

Studies of the health impacts from RFR have been widely published, but the wireless industry gives very limited information regarding biologically pertinent wireless risks to professionals and consumers alike, even when such frequencies are demonstrated to cause “a statistically significant increase in tumors of the heart (schwannomas), brain (malignant gliomas) and adrenal gland (pheochromocytomas), Increases in other organ tumors compared to controls (not statistically significant but noteworthy) for pancreas, prostate, pituitary, liver and lung, DNA damage in rodents, Cardiomyopathy similar to aging, Adverse perinatal effects in some groups.”

Those are the findings of the NTP (National Toxicology Program) in the US, “…the world’s largest, most well-designed study of its type, at a cost of $25 million” which found clear evidence of carcinogenicity from commonly encountered digital radiofrequency radiation (RFR).

“The NTP research, combined with basic cellular science, epidemiological research, prospective studies and other longitudinal studies showing adverse biological effects from radiofrequency radiation (RFR), strongly indicates that our current [exposure] safety guidelines urgently need reevaluation to protect public health.” What has happened since? The NTP’s research into radiofrequency radiation (RFR) health, which found “that RFR exposure was associated with an increase in DNA damage” effects has been de-funded and closed down.

“For the first time in more than 50 years, U.S. civilian agencies have no ongoing research on the health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation.” This is quite a scandal considering recently rolled out 5G technology has been insufficiently studied and is still regarded as a significant health risk to the public.

Cancer is not the only concern arising from society’s increasing use of wireless transmitters in the professional and consumer domains. Neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease are also of deep concern and are affecting well-known stage performers.

According to the World Health Organisation, “Currently more than 55 million people have dementia worldwide, over 60% of whom live in low-and middle-income countries. Every year, there are nearly 10 million new cases. Dementia results from a variety of diseases and injuries that affect the brain. Alzheimers disease is the most common form of dementia and may contribute to 60–70% of cases.”

Source: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia

The correlation of electronically generated electromagnetic fields to range of cognitive injuries and neurodegenerative diseases is stark in current research.

Scientists have discovered that:

“Pulsed electronically generated electromagnetic fields (EMFs) used for wireless communication are coherent producing strong electric and magnetic forces that act in the cells of our bodies primarily via activation of voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs). VGCC activation produces rapid increases in intracellular calcium levels. Therefore, EMF exposures produce changes with lead to excessive intracellular calcium. This buildup explains the effects on the brain in Alzheimer’s disease….These EMF induced changes to intracellular calcium levels have been demonstrated in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease. Research has shown the involvement of two pathways that lead to Alzheimer’s disease. Each of the two pathways producing pathophysiological effects following EMF exposure are important in Alzheimer’s causation: the excessive calcium signaling pathway and the peroxynitrite/oxidative stress/inflammation pathway.”

Researchers “El-Swefy and Jiang found massive neurodegeneration in young rats simply from exposing them to EMF pulses.” More research needs to be done including “EMF exposures assessments for pre-diagnosis environments for people aged 30 to 40 who have been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. These assessments should compare phone and cell phone tower radiation, Wi-Fi radiation, smart meter and dirty electricity radiation levels with normal controls.” Why not add wireless microphones, headsets and wireless guitar equipment to that list?

Source: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220426/New-insights-into-the-link-between-EMFs-calcium-and-Alzheimere28099s-disease.aspx

“Charged ions such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium are present in all tissues of the body. Most of the biomolecules possess charges and therefore they can be directly influenced by electric fields [40, 41]. “ Again, we are reminded that EMF influences excessive intracellular calcium levels which advance neurological damage and can cause dementia.

Source:https://www.imrpress.com/journal/FBS/13/2/10.52586/S561/htm

“The evidence indicates that long-term significant occupational exposure to ELF [extremely low frequency] magnetic fields may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (Davanipour 2007, García 2008), high frequency magnetic fields have similar consequences (Davanipour & Sobel 2009).”

https://www.powerwatch.org.uk/library/downloads/dementia-2012-01.pdf

Click here for more information about man-made electromagnetic fields.

When a guitar is like a phone

The three principles for radiation safety are: time, distance, and shielding. Yet there is no such hope of that in a packed crowd or contexts in which your instrument device, whether it be an RF-emitting microphone pack, wireless guitar system or smart phone, is close to or on the body for extended periods. For a performer, and public alike, radiation exposure becomes an issue and sensible interventions a priority.

So-called “non-ionising radiation”, the commonly encountered definition of man-made electromagnetic fields, including radiofrequency radiation (RFR) has an impact over time that can both cause and influence the trajectory of chronic diseases.

Increasing distance from the radiation source can effectively reduce radiation exposure and has long been advised, even by the The Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Shielding in its various applications may have an influence on exposure or even mitigate it. There are devices, paints and shielded clothing that can assist in this regard. “Electrically conductive materials, such as metals, reflect high-frequency electromagnetic fields. Metal foils or metal mesh, but also metal-coated window panes (for thermal insulation) can thus completely or partially shield high-frequency electromagnetic fields.” 

Performers and consumers often shield their guitars, which is to “enclose the electronics in sort of a ‘cage’, which rejects stray radio frequency interference. You can do this a few ways: copper or aluminum tape, or graphite shielding paint.”

Electric guitars have long been barometers of ambient electromagnetic radiation (EMR) such as radiowaves and microwaves which manifest as electromagnetic interference (EMI) and can affect the sound quality, or tone. This is because an electric guitar contains pick-ups which consist of electromagnetically charged poles which act like an antenna.

When you pluck a string the vibration tone is picked up. “This vibration disturbs the magnetic field and, due to electromagnetic induction, an electric current is generated within the coil. Your guitar’s pickups capture this current, which is then sent to an amplifier that boosts the signal and produces the sound you hear through the speakers.” “Electromagnetic induction is a process by which a magnetic field interacts with an electrical conductor, generating an electrical current.” Electromagnetic induction was discovered by Michael Faraday (22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867).

It was mentioned in a BBC article on the development of the electric guitar that Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones had described the ensuing invention of the electric guitar, as he was holding his own acoustic guitar, and said,“I mean, all they did was put a phone in it!”

Richards makes an interesting analogy in referencing a mobile phone and we can understand where he’s coming from. Pick-ups are like electromagnetic antennae that allow us to hear the electric guitar, but also can apprise us of inaudible radiofrequencies, through an amplifier, especially if you put a smart phone near it and it is searching for a signal, for example.

An electric guitar is even more like a mobile phone if it has a wireless pack, for then it becomes a transmitting device on the body and like a mobile phone, has increased health implications for the user. Experimental and observational studies ragarding exposure to radiofrequency radiation suggest, “current knowledge provides justification for governments, public health authorities, and physicians/allied health professionals to warn the population that having a cell phone next to the body is harmful, and to support measures to reduce all exposures to RFR.” 

When playing a wirelessly broadcasting guitar low on the body keep in mind that, “Experimental and observational studies…suggest that men who keep cell phones in their trouser pockets have significantly lower sperm counts and significantly impaired sperm motility and morphology, including mitochondrial DNA damage.”

For sure, wireless electric guitars are more like phones, because of the wireless transmitters worn close to or on the body, or even attached to a belt that make wireless playability possible.

Picking up interference

The wiring and components of electric guitars have changed little over the years. 50’s wiring is still used, as are potentiometers, capacitors and resistors. Central to the tonal possibilities of any electric guitar are the pick-ups. These are passive systems of alnico magnets. If these are not wired or grounded correctly there is danger of becoming either electrocuted or absorbing dirty electricity. A noticeable hum which cancels when you touch the strings will give it away. Take the instrument to a professional to correct the problem.

In an electric guitar, electromagnetic radiation is emitted by two common types of pick up, which are called Humbuckers and Single Coils. Each are normally powered by capacitors in the guitar and are called passive pick ups. The Single Coils are more prone to hum from electromagnetic influences.

“A single-coil pickup essentially works as an antenna. It picks up electromagnetic interference. This results in unwanted noise which manifests as hum and buzz.” Conversely, [passive] Humbuckers, which contain two single coils in opposition, cancel the hum, hence their name.

Certain electromagnetic influences can still disrupt them, especially in the home. “Humbuckers themselves don’t hum. But get them near light dimmers, fluorescent or neon lights, and dubious club wiring, and all sorts of buzzing happens. Shielding will never get rid of that 60-cycle hum that is present with single coils. Single coils have their own unique, beautiful sound, and part of that…is that hum. What shielding will do is prevent the wiring inside your guitar from acting like antennae and picking up stray signals floating around. If you want to get rid of hum in single coil guitars, you might have to switch to stacked single-coil sized humbuckers.”

There is another type of electric guitar pick up called active pick-ups (solid state systems powered by a battery), having stronger ceramic magnets, which have a preamp system boosting the output generating a stronger electromagnetic field. They sound louder than more sustained than regular pick ups. As active pick-ups generate a greater electromagnetic output, some wireless systems do not work with these types of pick-ups. Humbuckers are also available as active pick-ups.

Much more rapidly than the electrical circuitry of the electric guitar, the technology of amplification has moved ahead. Tube amplification that has driven most rock music from the 50’s to present day still has its place. The technology has become hybridised or replaced in some amplifier models that are more digitally adapted, such as solid state amplifiers that model sound digitally with semiconductor technology.

Digital wireless technology, made possible with semiconductors, is now transforming amplification possibilities further. This is being heavily marketed to consumers, whereas it was used in stadium and large venue contexts to enhance mobility across the stage and enhance audience engagement at shows. Whether such amplification is used on stage or in the home, health and safety precautions always matter regarding wireless radiation from EMF-radiating sources.

Even more like a phone: wireless Smart Guitars

Smart guitars are a new development which dispense with cables offering a portable digital technology package resembling an electric or acoustic guitar that operates in much the same way as a smart phone does.

The price is much higher than an entry-level traditional electric guitar. The device can connect wirelessly to the internet and other digital devices, download apps and play tunes through a bluetooth speaker. You can loop, record and share your work to social media.

Many effects are built in, including a drum machine, and it has midi capability for connecting to a computer for more software integration and recording possibilities. The guitars can work seamlessly with a smart phone on which you can customise the guitar. There are many different models and have accessories like a wireless headset, wireless pedal and of course, a charging stand. These guitars are not recommended for a professional setting, and have an educational theme because they contain “intelligent” learning software.

“Some can even be played through an amp like a conventional six-string, making them attractive choices for beginners, veterans, touring musicians, and even recording artists…Some smart guitars don’t have strings. Instead, these models have pressure-sensitive pads that connect to apps or recording software. Stringless models don’t produce any sound naturally, but they’re extremely low maintenance and great for learning…A feature that’s unique to smart guitars is the suite of learning tools. These tools are meant to educate new players about chord shapes, scales, and basic theory using a companion app to do so. Simply connect the guitar to the app (either wirelessly or with the included cable), and access a variety of interactive lessons, exercises, and games reminiscent of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Depending on the smart guitar, it may have LED lights on the fretboard that synchronize with the app, aiding players in finding the correct finger position.”

Ultimate Guitar tested out a smart guitar and states, “It still feels somewhat like a novelty overall,…you’re paying a few extra hundred for the novelty and built-in features instead of necessarily getting a higher-end guitar.”

Bluetooth connectivity puts the device Between 2.402 and 2.480 GHz, similar to Wi-Fi in the unlicensed frequency band of consumer wireless devices. Unlike conventional guitars they considerably add to the global burden of e-waste, and expose you to wireless radiation, just like the smart phones they are inspired by.

Digital radiation pollution: Distance matters

In the music industry, radiofrequency radiation (RFR) is recognisable as electromagnetic interference (EMI) and also radiofrequency interference (RFI) which affect stage and studio sound quality. The radiation activity degrades the signal from the microphone or instrument because of “dirty” electrical interactions. In the studio, balanced power is sought to eliminate the EMI problems for a “pure” current.

Electromagnetic fields from professional and consumer wireless devices, as the small print in their manuals are compelled to point out, are more likely to cause health issues if distance isn’t maintained. Bodily contact with the radiating transmitter must be prevented or significantly reduced to prevent damage to living tissue. The intracellular biological impacts of electromagnetic fields on, or close to the body are scientifically proven, and are cautiously referenced by industry who are keen to de-emphasise them. Noticeably, distancing (from the wireless product’s transmitter) is recommended but the manufacturers don’t elaborate on why. It is not profitable for a wireless vendor to educate the public that wireless radiation is a real and present danger to them.

According to Environmental Health Trust (EHT), “All manufacturers of wireless devices from cell phones to Wi-Fi Speakers To Wi-Fi toys have warnings which describe the minimum distance devices must be kept away from users in order to not exceed the as-tested radiofrequency radiation limits for exposure to wireless radiation.” How many professional performers or consumers follow these guidelines that could protect them from the intensity of the radiating source? 

EHT illustrates the risks of ignoring such recommendations, which are also the recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO): “Because of the inverse square law if devices are used closer than 8 inches to the body, exposures grow exponentially. Thus, at 5 inches it could increase 16-fold, and at less than one inch (i.e. on your lap) it could increase 100-fold.”

The FCC and other regulatory bodies who advise on such notices at the same time play down the health risks based on proximity to the radiating source. However contradictory their position on the health issues may seem, these agencies point out the precautionary principle of distancing radiofrequency transmitting devices from the body as a way to significantly reduce radiation exposure from a wireless device.

Society at large ignores such advice because the media promotes the idea wireless devices are harmless, and manufacturer literature doesn’t elaborate beyond mentioning “distancing” briefly in tiny print in a manual. Electromagnetic radiation from wireless products is capable of inducing thermal and biological effects even at the so-called “safe” levels that agencies like the FCC or ICNIRP prescribe on behalf of industry.

According to Spanish biologist, Alfonso Balmori BSc, “Under the current circumstances… the media, responsible organisations (World Health Organization, 2015) and governments do not pass on…crucial information to the population, which thus remains uninformed. For these reasons, the current situation is likely to end in a crisis not only for health, but also for the technology itself, as it is unsustainable and harmful to the environment and people.” 

Wireless technology and Dementia

The Lancet states that more interventions are needed and investment in research on biological mechanisms for addressing the expected increases in the number of individuals affected by dementia.

If we are to recognise what is advancing dementia in our society towards the projected astronomical increases by 2050, we can’t afford to dismiss wireless radiation as an influence on public health.

Scientists recognise that, “electromagnetic radiation (EMR) has become a substantial new pollution source in modern civilization. The biological effects of EMR have attracted considerable attention worldwide. The possible interaction of EMR with human organs, especially the brain, is currently where the most attention is focused. Many studies have shown that the nervous system is an important target organ system sensitive to EMR.” It is recognised that EMR causes neurotransmitter disorders, altering behaviour and causing neurophysiological changes.

Mainstream handling of the issue of dementia has been very unhelpful in excluding technological influences, for EMR has been scientifically studied as part of the problem. According to this report, published in Electron Physician, “people who spend more than 50 minutes a day using a cell phone could have early dementia or other thermal damage due to the burning of glucose in the brain.” The study used “data from the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP)…to verify the simulation.”

Today, according to Musicianwave.com “many musicians feel they need to heavily engage with social media platforms which is time-consuming and can be poor for mental health.” Musicians are thus compelled towards overuse of their smartphones or other internet-connected devices. Wireless radiation and screen radiation present considerable risks to public health and no musician should ignore that.

Dementia charities and the media equally ignoring EMR as a factor in the public health crisis is a veil over the eyes of the public concerning understanding why neurodegenerative disease is so prevalent – not just in the old, but the young are getting the symptoms, too.

So-called “digital dementia” in the “internet generation” from excessive screen-time has been highlighted amidst skyrocketing Alzheimer’s disease, because, “Converging evidence from biopsychosocial research in humans and animals demonstrates that chronic sensory stimulation (via excessive screen exposure) affects brain development increasing the risk of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural disorders in adolescents and young adults. Emerging evidence suggests that some of these effects are similar to those seen in adults with symptoms of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in the early stages of dementia, including impaired concentration, orientation, acquisition of recent memories (anterograde amnesia), recall of past memories (retrograde amnesia), social functioning, and self-care.”

EMR, (a.k.a. wireless radiation, radiofrequency radiation, microwave radiation), not just inflated screen time, accelerates neurodegnerative activity, for radiofrequency transmission delivers content and wireless functionality to digital devices but this artificial pulse-modulated radiation also an influence on developing and adult brains, interfering with the human body’s biological mechanisms that are there to sustain health.

A paper titled “Risks to Health and Well-Being From Radio-Frequency Radiation Emitted by Cell Phones and Other Wireless Devices” published in Frontiers in Public Health in 2019 recognises, “The incidence of neuro-epithelial brain cancers has significantly increased in all children, adolescent, and young adult age groupings from birth to 24 years in the United States (14, 15). A sustained and statistically significant rise in glioblastoma multiforme across all ages has been described in the UK (16).” In addition, “The increasing use of cell phones in children, which can be regarded as a form of addictive behavior (40), has been shown to be associated with emotional and behavioral disorders.”

Professional wireless products, used by consumers and performers alike, use the same frequency bands as Wi-Fi and cell phones, which are undoubtedly negatively influencing the body’s biological mechanisms, and this can be said about their influence on rising cancer and dementia cases too.

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) a precursor to Parkinson’s Disease

Music production and performances may eventually sensitise the performer to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) which results in a condition known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). While the World Health Organisation recognises that “more than 55 million people have dementia worldwide” what isn’t known by the public is that over 350 million people are reported suffering with EHS. (The prevalence of EHS is unknown, but various reports suggest that it is between 1 and 10% of the population (Hallberg and Oberfeld, 2006; Huang et al., 2018.).

How is EHS impacting musicians? The music journal NME notes that, in 1995, Ricky Gardiner, the former guitarist with Iggy Pop who “worked on Iggy’s ‘Lust For Life’ album in 1977, co-writing ‘The Passenger’, ‘Success’ and ‘Neighbourhood Threat’ … playing lead guitar on such tracks as ‘Lust For Life’” fell ill with EHS a stigmatised form of functional impairment caused electromagnetic radiation “which restricted the amount of time he could spend with computer devices while recording music.”

Throughout his career his passion to play music had immersed his body in the electromagnetic radiation associated with his music-making. Ricky Gardiner admitted “struggling with electrosensitivity in 2006, which made it harder to produce his electronic works.” Some press sources also confirm that “the guitarist had been living with Parkinson’s disease.” He died in 2022 aged 73.

The problem we have is that a case like Gardiner’s, though mentioned in the press, doesn’t get much coverage, and when it does, mentions his EHS in passing without highlighting its true significance. With 5% of the population (equivalent to more than the entire population of the US) now reporting EHS, the problem is bigger than many people assume.

It is striking that Ricky Gardiner is described as having both EHS and Parkinson’s disease. According to a paper published in the Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy, “Severe oxidative stress can cause imbalances in reactive oxygen species, which may trigger neurodegeneration.” Oxidative stress is induced by electromagnetic fields which cause EHS.

The paper confirms that conditions such as electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) are likely an underlying factor in the development of Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative disorders:

“Sensitivity to EMF exposure may be a common underlying effect in the CNS in regards to neurodegenerative disorders. In the literature, the main sensitization syndrome seems to be a pathophysiological change such as migraines, irritable bowel and bladder, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, or chronic pain. The IARC characterized the radiation of mobile phones as Group 2B (possibly carcinogenic) in 2011. Most studies show that the carcinogenic and genotoxic effects of EMFs also evidence a correlation.”

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0891061816300576

Reducing or removing EMR risks

As a performer or consumer involved with wireless systems for the guitar or wireless microphone systems, distancing yourself from the transmitter and receiver are paramount to avoiding harmful exposures. How that is achieved depends on a knowledge of the particular system. Distancing oneself from intense digital lighting is also effective but may not always be achievable, so eyewear might be an effective option, and seems to reduce optical glare for Bono who has glaucoma and photophobia.

If using a wireless guitar system know that you have options about the placement of the transmitters and receivers so that your distance from either can be increased to avoid near field exposures of wireless radiation.

In terms of guitar usage, “Wireless guitar systems use radio frequencies or digital transmissions to send the audio signal…The [plug-in] transmitter [type, for example,] is connected to the guitar’s output jack, and the receiver is connected to the amplifier or audio system. The transmitter sends the guitar’s signal to the receiver, which then sends it to the amplifier or audio system.”

According to guitarriver.com, “Affordable [wireless guitar] systems operate on common wireless frequencies–2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz. Your home wi-fi, cordless phones, baby monitors, and other household wireless devices transmit on these frequencies. The 2.4 GHz frequency band has been around longer and may be more crowded than 5.8 GHz, but will have a longer range. “…”Professional systems operate on different frequency bands altogether. Some run on the 600 MHz and 700 MHz bands, although these systems are being phased out by the FCC. Refer to the FCC documentation for wireless microphones if you are curious.”

What are the different types of transmitter packs for wireless guitar systems? Plug-in transmitters plug into the guitar’s output jack. Belt pack transmitters can be clipped to your belt or guitar strap. Some guitars come with built-in transmitters and are limited to use with compatible wireless receivers.

As we can see, the transmitters are predominantly placed close to the body and therefore increase the musician’s burden of exposure to electromagnetic radiation.

Types of receivers for digital wireless guitar systems include: “Plug-in receivers that…plug directly into the pedal board, amplifier, or wherever you would normally plug in the other end of the cable coming from your guitar. Pedalboard receivers: These receivers are designed to fit on a guitarist’s pedalboard, making them convenient and easy to integrate into an existing setup…and can be powered by a standard pedalboard power supply. Rackmount receivers…are designed to be mounted in a standard 19-inch equipment rack, making them suitable for larger or more complex setups [and] are commonly used in professional touring rigs, larger venues, or recording studios. Tabletop receivers…have a compact design that can be placed on a table or other flat surfaces. They are usually smaller and more portable [so are] suitable for smaller venues, rehearsals, or home use.“

These radiofrequency receivers also present options for placement that can increase our distance from them, but this can’t be of much benefit if the transmitter is near or on the body and is exposing you to near field radiation for the duration of the performance, which over time could add up to health problems down the road.

A wireless microphone may have the transmitter at the base of the handle. Remember, if wireless devices are used closer than 8 inches to the body, exposures to EMR grow exponentially. A microphone stand may help, but why not just have it wired in the first place? As a guitar signal is also optimum through a wired rig with an amplifier unit, why not keep it that way, too, potentially keeping the band safer from EMR on stage?

Reliable wired performance over wireless risks

Wired connections are never likely to be phased out because they are so reliable, (as is the case with wired internet connections, too). Just as gamers and many other users of internet connected devices prefer wired connections for speed, reliability and security, many musicians and performers choose cables because they convey a signal reliably, have optimum sound quality and have zero latency. A conventional microphone is also more reliable, latency-free and safer using a wired connection. Wired connections remove the hazard of pulse modulated wireless radiation in the working environment.

Professionals understand that the drawbacks of wireless microphone systems which make the advantages of wired connections even more obvious. “Nearby radio signals and other wireless devices can cause interference with your wireless system. Make sure that no radio transmitters come as close to 10-15 ft. to your wireless receiving antennas…Objects blocking your signal may also cause issues. Make sure to have a clear path between your transmitters and receivers.”

Wireless mics and guitar systems also use batteries too, and issues of compression and latency can be introduced in both systems. Why risk increased radiation exposure or quality issues when “The overall reliability of wireless microphones doesn’t come close to the reliability of a decent wired microphone set-up”? And that goes for guitars too!

Source: https://www.musicianport.com/wired-microphone-vs-wireless-microphone

An unethical industry partnership fuelling health degradation and wireless exposure

Adding to the radiation health burden of audiences and stage performers today are the invisible collimated beams of high frequency pulsed electromagnetic radiation (EMR) utilised in “phase distribution” in 5G wireless technology. 5G technology (currently using a mixture of 4G LTE and compressed millimeter waves) now dominates post-pandemic music festivals aiming to reach pre-pandemic profitability at all costs.

Smart phone charging stations and 5G antennae are now routinely erected at major music events to fuel the endemic social media addiction that is now “part of the show.” These festivals are a major source of revenue and continue to dominate the market, predominantly attracting telecom industry sponsorship.

Using novel microwave propagation systems and under-researched modulated microwave ranges 5G adoption is a whole new ball game of EMR exposure lacking sufficient research to guarantee public safety.

Internationally, EMR guidelines offer no real guarantees about public safety from 5G and governments mired in debt and open to bribery explain more about economic positives than enlightening the public about health impacts – like the industries lobbying for the technology’s wide adoption. Legal actions, scientific outrage and controversies continue leaving communities embattled with local authorities and network providers to stop masts and installations being erected near schools and within communities. (The following Hardell, Nilsson studies and summary concerning exposures of men, women and children to 5G base stations are worth reading).

As the music industry “faces a “major threat from strong economic headwinds” 5G controversies must seem like a sideshow to working musicians and performers (who may know little of the scientific research that contradicts industry and governments’ safety claims). However, it is clear that music events are now operating within a technological “wild west” where profits trump safety concerns. The concerns of festival goers and public alike are ignored.

The telecoms network providers partner with the music festivals to exploit musical performances and massive crowds to access the artists’ lucrative fanbases to market 5G services using “exclusive content.”

In this context, festival organisers and network providers alike are lacking in any ethical responsibility as they evolve music shows into digital technology exhibitions and “smartphone fests” playing down legitimate health issues. They do this in the face of ZERO evidence that can show that 5G’s novel microwave technology and beam-forming capabilities are innocuous and fit for purpose. 5G’s capacity to gather data quickly and in huge quantities seems to drive the “uptake”evolution”, but is it to the benefit of musicians and consumers? It leaves the public doubly vulnerable, from cover-ups of data breaches concerning wireless technology to the remarkably widespread and naiive dismissal of possible radiation related health impacts. None of this can benefit anyone.

Data harvesting and wireless technology have become enduring facets of the music industry’s profit machine. According to sgeworldwide.com, the music industry has been “transformed by the use of data and analytics…[which has] enabled record labels and music publishers to gain insights into consumer behavior and trends, allowing them to make more informed decisions about which artists to sign and which songs to promote….with record labels and publishers using data to identify new talent and create more effective marketing campaigns.”

Gathering data and fuelling social media frenzy for sustained profits is what the music industry and telecoms companies both have in common. “Many promotional practices in the music industry that were useful in the past are no longer effective or relevant” and this means ceaseless promotion of internet-connected experiences that also encourage sustained exposures to wireless radiation emitting technologies may be considered among the music industry’s “unethical tactics.” Network providers and big tech have a stranglehold on the music industry’s economic and ethical trajectories – the fans and performances seem like background noise.

As Musicianwave reports, “stranglehold monopolies and unethical means undermine a free and fair market” and “…musicians only gained 12% of the $43 billion generated in the industry in 2017…It’s a vicious game of chance, and some musicians practice unethical promotion tactics to get ahead….[for example]…major artists have been revealed to have bought fake Twitter followers to the point where it’s almost standard industry practice now.” According to sgeworldwide.com, in addition, “…the use of algorithms in music streaming services to recommend music to listeners has become a controversial topic” and there is a “lack of transparency in how these algorithms work.”

As the BBC reports, “The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said more than 80% of recorded music was now listened to via streaming….[and]…a million streams per month would earn an artist only about £12,000 per year…The number of artists streaming music rose from about 200,000 to 400,000 between 2014 and 2020.” With no-one “fully sure how they will sustain a creative career as the landscape of the industry changes so dramatically” extra pressure to adopt and exploit digital technologies (particularly wireless) is driving commercial music’s increasingly precarious existence, but also its current survival and relationships with wireless interests.

We can appreciate that wireless connectivity and internet-led goals not only encourage a range of unethical practices but also promote sustained unethical exposures to technological radiation (excessive optical radiation, Blutooth, Wi-Fi, RFR, 5G, millimeter waves, etc) which impacts the physical and mental health of the “pawns” that bring the industry such massive profits: the musicians and their fanbases.

Health clearly has long been a side show to industry. Profits are the overriding industry concern. However, today some industry-induced health concerns are beginning to be highlighted. As sgeworldwide.com reports, “Mental health is a growing concern in the music industry, with many artists struggling with anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues.” When will chronic levels of EMR exposure and screen time be factored into the health equation?

In the era of digital transformation professionals and consumers have some serious choices to make. Making the right choices for health and wellbeing are perhaps more vital than ever before.

Weighing up the cost

Musicians have always faced health impacts that come with the territory, but sadly they have been sparsely studied. As digital technology transforms the profession its influence must be taken into account in future studies. Many scientific studies regarding the optical radiation for digital lighting and the health impacts from radiofrequency radiation (RFR) can be referenced.

Musicians on stage, in transit, at home or in production studio contexts encounter and utilise digital technologies in a variety of ways. Issues arising from exposures to man-made electromagnetic radiation may not have plagued performers in the hey-day of legendary American record producers like Quincy Jones (1933-present), for example, but today they have become more pronounced. Performers are being struck by cancer, bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s Disease, and Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), for example, and digital technologies can play a toxic role. The number of people in the population reporting EHS would appear to outweigh the number with dementia and bipolar disorder combined.

WIth the democratisation of digital music production tools and wireless devices, the general population is still unaware of the risks they are taking on. Some health impacts from technological radiation were being observed before the advent of now ubiquitous EMR and radiofrequency emitting digital devices such as modern computers, and smart phones. As this excerpt from “Electromagnetic hypersensitivity means Peter Lloyd can’t leave his house… or enjoy any modern pleasures inside” by Martin Shipton, Wales Online, Oct 16, 2014, reveals: “As early as the 1930s…EHS symptoms were observed in people working with radio and electricity, and with military radar in the 1940s…Environmental EHS appeared in the general population from the 1970s with computers.” Whether or not the emergence of EHS can be pinpointed as described, clearly EHS is an advancing health issue of our times. It remains ominously taboo and stigmatised in our digital culture.

Quincy Jones’ daughter, Jolie Jones Levine, who is vice president of the Take It Back Foundation, and an actress, vocalist, model, producer, author and the wife of renowned record producer Stewart Levine, has electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). Her experience of the condition is described in an interview with Olle Johansson Ph.D. titled, “I’m Not The Only One!”. https://www.jolietalks.com

She is certainly not the only one. Other performers from guitarist and music producer Ricky Gardiner, Kim De’Atta, a British actress and singer, to Johan Söderberg, a Swedish musician and member of the band The Hives, and many other performers in the public eye have developed EHS and have spoken out about it.

As consumers and performers are presented with more wireless products, and are marketed more incentives to acquire them and stay connected to the internet, EMR becomes a monumental problem across the spectrum of daily life, fuelling potential cases of EHS and other conditions. Wireless instrument and microphone systems are becoming normalised through consumerism and “cable-free” stage performances where performers utilising wireless headsets and equipment are emphasised in exciting content and marketing to make a snappy sale. In reality all adds up increased EMR exposure for a public mostly neglectful of the health implications.

And…it all adds up to more expense. Wireless systems for the professional musician or vocalist are seriously expensive for a high quality outfit, where as kits for the home vocalist or guitar player are more economical, and, can even operate in some of the same frequency ranges too (2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz).

Such frequency ranges will cover a person walking across a stadium stage but how many people need that kind of range in their home, a studio, or at a small gig? How many other frequencies are brought to your performance from your other electrical or wireless devices, neighbours’ wireless products, smartmeters, phones, and adjacent electrical and wireless infrastructure? The risk to your health clearly increases with wireless components added in your immediate vicinity, and from closer proximity.

Skyrocketing wireless radiation over the past 20+ years can be considered a real and present occupational risk for professional performers engaging with digital technologies on and off-stage, from powerful LED lighting to powerful wireless systems and computer/smart phone screens. Smart guitars emerging on the market further encourage uptake of novelty wireless “smart” devices that are portable and offer convenience, but still, they emit unhealthy optical and radiofrequency radiation.

Crowding the home, studio or stage with wireless devices (radiofrequency transmitters and receivers that generate electromagnetic radiation) isn’t a good idea if you plan to avoid EMI, and further, the myriad EMR-induced health consequences which include cancer and dementia. No matter how inconvenient, we cannot escape the correlation of digital technology to the epidemic of chronic and debilitating health conditions.

Press coverage of professional musician Ricky Gardiner’s tragic death alerted us to his battle with electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS – also known as Microwave Syndrome) from man-made EMR. Sustained EMR exposure can kickstart neurodegenerative diseases, which can also become a consequence of developing EHS, and bipolar disorder, the latter which is regularly spoken of by musicians suffering from the condition and deemed positive for removing the condition’s “stigma”. By comparison EHS receives less positive public attention, and also carries more stigma.

Musicians are not immune to EMR. A stage rig and other industry lifestyle choices that saturate a performer in man-made electromagnetic radiation puts a performer at risk of developing EHS over time. Olle Johansson, Ph.D, a scientist with expertise regarding EMF exposure impacts and EHS, reminds us, “EMFs [electromagnetic fields] disturb immune function through stimulation of various allergic and inflammatory responses, as well as effects on tissue repair processes. Such disturbances increase the risks for various diseases, including cancer. These and the EMF effects on other biological processes (e.g. DNA damage, neurological effects, etc.) are now widely reported to occur at exposure levels significantly below most current national and international safety limits [e.g. FCC, ICNIRP].”

Every performer, whether professional or starting out on the journey of musical and technological integration should ask whether adding wireless functionality is necessary or advantageous, and whether the capacity in your case has the potential to exacerbate the effects of your exposure to occupational electromagnetic fields (or exacerbate any pre-existing health conditions you may already have). In the contexts of home and schools consider that wireless radiation has more impact on developing children who absorb the radiation like sponges for “their brain tissue is more conductive, RF penetration is greater relative to head size, and they will have a longer lifetime of exposure than adults. (Pediatrics, volume 116, Issue 2, August 2005)” Do developing children learning an instrument really need wireless functionality, as offered by plug in transmitters or a “smart guitar”?

Consider that your decisions could eventually affect the progress of yours and others’ careers. Radiation from digital technologies may significantly increase your chances of developing photophobia, EHS or even Parkinson’s Disease, as a result of occupational or recreational exposure. Consider also that music festivals have become seas of wireless radiation as the audiences all carry and use their mobile devices (a radiofrequency transmitter-receiver) creating a level of collective radiation exposure that has surprisingly gone unmonitored and unmentioned. Social media addiction now endemic in audiences’ and musicians’ lives also has immense implications for the physical and mental health of both demographics.

The cumulative impacts of all of these influences, from optical to wireless radiation from digital technologies become part of future health outcomes. Fuelling the silent health crisis are 5G digital developments, where the radiation impact hasn’t been sufficiently studied for its long-term health and safety implications. 5G microwave radiation emissions interfere with human health as studies are showing, but also interferes with wireless microphones, as the “frequency bands can overlap with the ones used by wireless microphones, especially in unlicensed frequency ranges, causing interference,” as sonicfunction.com explains.

We can’t ignore the pressing issue of health impacts from digital technology on musicians and their public. Ask the serious question as a music consumer, or a professional in the music business, is it really necessary to incorporate a wireless system in your current rig, (especially when wired connections are in the main more than adequate for many professional applications) and are the potential risks to your future (and the health of others exposed to your wireless digital systems) worth the ultimate price of doing so?

Image credit: Illustration by Sean Alexander Carney

A dangerous shift

Digital addiction is a socially transmitted “disease” of our times arising from our “subjectification” which is the process of constituting you or I as an object of knowledge by power relations acting upon us.

We see widespread digital addiction from excessive internet engagement. Excessive video gaming (VG) time causes a condition recognised in 2019 by W.H.O. called “gaming disorder.” There has been growing aggression in children addicted to violent social online-gaming. Mental health issues from excessive screen time are crippling society. According to a 2020 study of internet addiction on mental health, “The excessive use of the Internet leads to psychological injury, mental health damage, and other health problems.”

In our current context industry figures, non governmental organisations (NGOs), intelligence agencies, politicians, the military, celebrities and other poles of influence are shaping society into a tool of technology. This “steering group” of stakeholders in our future of “subjectification” mediates our technological attitudes and addictions for the purpose of achieving influence and mastery over human beings across the spectrum of society. They sell “digital transformation”, but it is more a metamorphosis of the psyche towards a state of surrender, and possession, as if some virulent contagion or parasite is at work upon us.

Technocratic interests are meticulously mediating our experience online as a continuous social experiment transforming our society in the same way a war would if it were waged by non-kinetic means. A silent and silencing war to dissipate resistance, for the object of achieving compliance. Through managing this experiment it has proven possible for these interests to non-kinetically drive society’s addiction and to “crave” its own disempowerment. This is because society addictively craves the technology that is disempowering them. It is leaving people “strung out” as if it were “electronic heroin” paving the way for unimpeded societal transformation while swathes of society are feeling digitally induced health impacts and symptoms of digital addiction.

Society’s intensifying digital engagement makes the problem of digital addiction-related mental health issues seem almost insurmountable. Digital addiction is a condition that is normalised and reinforced by the technocracy the addiction serves.

There seems a curious “need” for people to protect coveted technologies from attack or criticism. It is stark in our society. Their devices have a deep and tight hold on their lives, and “feel” part of them and their very identity.

People feel integrated, empowered and “normal” by owning an internet-connecting wireless digital device, also privileged, progressive, and socially accepted. However, by normalising society’s addiction to technology, and defending technology as if it were our very being, we have moved from being a society that perceives itself empowered by world of digital tools, to becoming the tools of the digitally-created worlds that we have empowered. In that transformation, the attitude of consumers appears to have shifted to not what we might expect of industry, but to prioritising what industry expects of us in our consumption of technology.

It is a dangerous shift, for as we’ll discover, industry is driven by the priorities of powerful intelligence agencies and military imperatives concerning data (intelligence) acquisition for strategic cognitive operations, profitability and sustained power and influence.

These intel-obsessed forces have from the beginning shaped the internet, its purposes, and the tools to access it. They continue to do so because it represents the battlefield for our minds and control of it can mobilise society’s will through optimised surveillance that offers the prospect of instantaneously changing the target’s beliefs via internet connected devices. Digital addiction is therefore politically “desirable”. The casualties are mounting as if struck by a contagion, spurred by the “convenience” digital devices clearly offer. Addiction and contagion are concepts that properly describe mental and physical impacts injurious to society from exposure to the myriad “viral” technologies, epitomised by the smart phone.

The “chemical wedding” of you to your digital device

You might know how to use a smart phone but do you know if you are addicted to it, or why? Smart phone addiction has been called “smartphone dependence” and also nomophobia, meaning NO MObile PHOne phoBIA – the fear of being unable to access a smart phone or other internet connected smart device. If you feel disempowered when you are parted from your smart phone, then you have let it have the power to control you. That small object? How can that happen?

The smart phone is a portable, hand-held device that can easily disempower you, because of the chemical changes it causes in the brain. A smart phone can potentially leave one with a weakened immune system and toxicity in the body leading to degeneration, fatigue and illness – but not before altering your “chemical” relationship to this wireless internet-connecting smart device. Our attitude to it matters.

It is fruitful to view the device as a “smart” parasite that fools us into thinking it is “part of us” for it chemically infiltrates us. The analogy of the parasite is apt. Consider, for example, that the parasite Toxoplasma gondii has been linked to “addictive and obsessive behaviours” (and other neurological and psychiatric disorders).

Like the addictive smart phones the Toxoplasma gondii species affects serotonin and dopamine levels, taking control of you. Serotonin influences emotion and impulse control, sleep, and wakefulness while dopamine relates to mood, and addictive behaviours. Toxoplasma gondii dramatically increases dopamine levels (like when you are scrolling through internet content on a plasma touch-screen). Dopamine is a chemical that also affects mobility and behaviour, “regulate[s] emotional responses, and increases stimulation to your pleasure seeking and reward centers, much like addictive substances do.”

It is fascinating how the parasite (found in feline excreted waste, wild game and contaminated food and water) alters the behaviour of the host, much like the internet-connected smart phone does.

Scientists have linked the smart phone (and Toxoplasma gondii) to obsessive-compulsive disorders, and other forms of mental illness. Like the popular smart phone, which has fuelled chronic use of “brain-hacking” social media – leading to impacts like FOMO (fear of missing out), negative body image, and other damaging influences on mood and feelings – the Toxoplasma gondii parasite lowers serotonin levels in the host, chemically hijacking wellbeing and brain function. Low serotonin (a neurotransmitter) is linked to obsessive-compulsive behaviour and can cause physical and mental health problems.

Behaviour and mood problems, sleep and appetite issues, high stress levels, anxiety, and depression are some of the symptoms of lowered serotonin. Lowered serotonin caused through digital addiction compels craving more dopamine influx, from more internet and social media engagement. Riding the dopamine “wave” leads to crashes and cravings whereby person can easily become addicted to their devices, caught in the vicious cycle.

Sleep is another thing smart phones deprive people of (by suppressing melatonin, a hormone that makes you feel tired and regulates sleep, while raising serotonin, the neurotransmitter that keeps us wakeful and alert). Getting a good night’s sleep has long protected us from all manner of disease, including parasite infections. Sleep is an investment in our immune systems, however the blue light emitted from smart phone screens in the evenings can hijack our circadian rhythm and disrupts it. In 2015 a Deloitte survey found “that around 59% of smartphone users checked a social media platform in the five minutes before going to bed, and within 30 minutes of waking up.” According UNICEF, “screens hijack attention spans.”

Digital addiction not only alters the brain but causes physical detriments. As Apple Insider notes, “excessive…screen time has been linked to the development of myopia — or nearsightedness…looking at screens for too long can physically change the structure of the eyeball, causing it to elongate from front to back….Some experts believe that by 2050, over 50% of people will have myopia. This is especially true for children whose eyes are more likely to deform with increased screen usage.” Screens bring radiation. The LED (Light Emitting Diode) frequencies radiating off screens are bombarding our retinas. We have invited an unpleasant parasite into our lives hijacking our health in countless ways.

Parasite resistance is part of our evolution and in the short time we’ve been exposed to mobile phones during that evolution many people in our society register that there is a problem of addiction and can see the parasite is destroying lives. They are realising it is time to purge the digital parasite’s influence by reducing screen time and use of the internet to focus on real-life interactions and quality time. This pursuit is known as a “digital detox.”

The following excerpt will make it clear why a digital detox is worth considering:

“:…research has shown that smartphone use affects health and well-being, performance, and social interactions. Regarding health-related problems, studies have found that smartphone use is related to higher depression rates and anxiety (Lepp et al., 2014), sleep difficulties (Thomée, 2018), and also musculoskeletal problems in case of smartphone overuse (İNal et al., 2015). Furthermore, a predominance of empirical results indicates a negative association between smartphone use and academic performance (Amez & Baert, 2020), which corresponds with results showing that smartphone overuse is related to lower work productivity and engagement (e.g., Duke & Montag, 2017). Moreover, smartphone use also increases negative affect or stress and reduces the quality of interactions when individuals focus on their own smartphones during social interactions (so-called phubbing; McDaniel & Radesky, 2018; Nuñez et al., 2020).

Even though some of the negative associations between digital technology use and health and well-being are small (Dienlin & Johannes, 2020; Orben & Przybylski, 2019a; Orben & Przybylski, 2019b), smartphone users are concerned about their own smartphone use. For example, research has demonstrated that smartphone users blog about the need to spend time away from their smartphones (Jorge, 2019; Kuntsman & Miyake, 2016), or even search for strategies to better manage their online time, e.g., with the help of applications such as iOS Screen Time, Android Digital Well-Being, Moment, Forest, Quality Time, Detox, Space, or OffTime. Furthermore, groups have organized an annual National (and Global) Day of Unplugging, which have been held for several years now with many followers (National Day of Unplugging, n.d.). Thus, it is not surprising that mass media present unplugging from smartphones as a trendy way to reduce the negative impact from smartphone use on health-related outcomes. Self-help tips are available on many platforms, such as social media, websites, and books with titles such as 24/6: The power of unplugging one day a week(Price, 2018; Shlain, 2019; Syvertsen, 2017). The concerns expressed in these texts reflect general concerns about smartphone use, and advice is given on how to rebalance one’s life by restricting smartphone use (Syvertsen, 2017). In a similar vein, holiday tour operators promote so-called digital detox camps or centers and “mobile free” holidays. All aim to help people escape from everyday digital connectivity. Particularly in Asia such holidays and events are booming (Collier, 2009; Dickinson et al., 2016; Syvertsen, 2017).”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20501579211028647

How smart phones and other digital devices wirelessly connected to the internet have evolved within society has become a health crisis in the making affecting learning, productivity, and mental health. It is out of this crisis that people are striving to become set free from the hold digital technology has on their lives by digital distancing.

To illustrate the hold it has, the smart phone has been regularly portrayed as the purveyor of society’s “electronic/digital heroin.” When the Blackberry (marking the beginning of the smart phone era, and providing the addictive blueprint) was released it was dubbed a “crackberry” because of its addict-ability. It was even marketed as “always on, always connected.”

I have likened the smart phone’s hold and effects to a“parasite infection” controlling the host. It has also been regarded as an “electromagnetic weapon” for other aspects of its mental and physical impacts on people. It’s a very interesting shortlist of characteristics for one of the most popular digital devices. How the device is influencing wellbeing and health should give us every reason to consider digital distancing in the form of a digital detox.

Perhaps you know someone reducing their screen time, maybe you are for the same reason – there is a life of fresh potential beyond the “parasitic” consequences of living life through a smart phone.

Inheriting our symptoms of “tech” envy and digital addiction

The above shortlist of three analogies for the detrimental impacts of smart phone technology is interesting because it looks like a set of research criteria that have profoundly obsessed the military. Today, technology is preying upon military soldiers in the form of digitally induced “gaming addiction” which “may be particularly problematic in a military context, in which task performance often requires optimal physical and mental functioning.”

It is somewhat ironic to realise even the military is buckling from technology addiction. Particularly when we ask the question “where does our technology come from?” That question holds the key to all technology addiction, because military innovations in technology drives the industries and Big Tech companies who mediate products like smart technologies and sell it to the public in its very addictive consumer forms.

All of our technology is developed and handed down courtesy of the military, and intelligence agencies, who continue to guide Big Tech in the development and direction of the internet and the smart phone as well as the other military-grade technologies that society craves.

The military has an addiction to technology, or is it technological supremacy? That has become the fate of most people in our society as well. In our society, people buy into the social status of technological supremacy, competing against others to enhance their image and flaunt the best tech money can buy. Governments are also doing this, and encouraging it.

Integral to all our lives?

We are told digital technology is integral to our lives, but whose lives? Not all of our lives. Digital developments have created a “digital divide”, a strategic and political tool where the phrase “don’t be left behind in the race” keeps affluent consumers of “transformative” technology feeling superior. The lower income classes are conversely “in line and waiting” and the divide also keeps the developing countries needy, open to bribes and groping for a foothold on the digital economic ladder.

The divide also creates a justification for changing laws, accelerating roll outs, seizing municipal infrastructure for 5G small cell distribution and to erect transmitters in rural and other previously inaccessible, protected, or even “holy” spaces (including church steeples and even 5G mobile network expansion in the Holy Mosque in Makkah). But can such an aggressive “race” even close the internet accessibility gap a.k.a. digital divide, and at what price?

In the UK 5G infrastructure was legislated into law as a national security concern, and in the US the National Strategy to Secure 5G was launched with CISA (which works with industry leaders). This move in both countries was justified by pointing to Chinese network provider Huawei’s potential to collect intelligence for the Chinese government by supplying network technologies in these countries. (What about the UK or US government potential to collect intelligence from network usage? 5G’s “Internet of Things (IoT) has been called a “hackers paradise,” making it all too easy.)

The defence of 5G was deemed a national security “priority” essential for military strategy and keeping society in line online, for war in the future is cognitive, non-kinetic, cyber warfare (and most likely waged on native citizens to keep hearts and minds in the latest war game). The military’s purpose after all is effective influence over the status quo, and it is done less by force and more by wireless technology and internet access these days. NATO, for example, are now intimately entwined in the public’s “digital addiction” and are geared to wage cognitive attacks through the internet’s information streams. The internet has become the theatre of war.

The “theatre of war” is the laboratory for testing the technological products of the military industrial complex and parading them to the public in the drama of a national or international military emergency. The second world war was like a “Great World Fair” for accelerating social and industrial transformation, and for shaping public opinions and expectations about future wars. 

The “shock and awe” of technology and accelerating societal transformation amidst the trauma and uncertainty of the Second World War established a template for all wars that followed. Defeating fascism was pushed forefront in the public mind, to protect culture, freedoms and values rooted in history, however, the architects of that war and future warfare didn’t really see eradication of fascism as their chief goal. Technological innovation helped to fuel a powerful narrative of cultural perpetuation that the public wanted to believe in, and it worked to oil the wheels of the war machine – still does.

The Second World War was a symptom of compulsive international “tech” envy that has become fixed and defended in our society, and manifests now as digital addiction and its associated mental health problems are blossoming.

The priority of the allies in WWII was not so much to defeat the German fascist ideology (Nazism) but the theft of German Nazi (Axis Powers) technologies for the prospect of better controlling populations in the military strategic realm, and the consumer realm, which would be reinforced by the United Nations (UN) and World Health Organisation (WHO) to come as the enchantment of technology for social control took firm root.

Technological addiction for ideological imperatives of social control

At the close of WWII the allies acquired their haul of Nazi technology. German research facilities were seized. A selected group of captured Nazi scientists with their families, many of whom were working on atomic and electromagnetic research were treated like a venerable “prize” and were distributed between the allies to further develop their work (see Operation Paperclip).

Operation Paperclip was a program run by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) and Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the forerunner to the CIA which assisted in their recruitment “…by eliminating or whitewashing incriminating evidence of possible war crimes from the scientists’ records”.

The nonprofit media organization, NPR reports, “They all had different trajectories, but none of them seemed to have been held accountable for what happened and what they were involved in during the war. Dr. Benzinger, who was one of the Nazi doctors, came here, and when he died at the age of ninety-something he had a wonderful obituary in The New York Times lauding him for inventing the ear thermometer. Entirely left out of the story was the work that he performed on concentration camp prisoners….Wernher von Braun, who went on to design the rockets [for NASA] that took man to the moon…[was not only] a Nazi, but a member of the SS. And not only was he running the underground slave labor facility where his rockets were being built — he wasn’t running the facility but he was in charge of the science there — but when they were running low of good technicians, Wernher von Braun himself traveled nearby to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he hand-picked slaves to work for him as laborers.”

The “trusted” allies made it all look so easy, protecting perpetrators of warcrimes. The allies consisted of countries now formally referred to as the United Nations (UN) which included the “Big Four”: the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union and China. Tech envy, not the desire from liberation from fascism, ensured “more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945–59. Some were former members and leaders of the Nazi Party.”

Being major players in that war, the UK, USA and USSR all gained what they needed to develop nuclear power programs, nuclear weapons, ultrasonic weapons, and surveillance, broadcasting, communications and radar capabilities using electromagnetic waves, with many of the captured Nazis (including high ranking SS officers) working in NASA and the CIA, even at the UN gaining highly influential posts that had significant impacts on our society, technologically and ideologically, as well as guiding the trajectory and nature of electronic technology for public consumption.

Sustaining technological addiction

Was it really a war for sustaining technological addiction? We know that was the absolute priority and not the defeat of fascism, the Final Solution, or the rescue of victims of concentration camps, because documents have since revealed the US at the time knew of the camps and what was going on but did nothing to intervene until it was maximally impacting and flattering for US public relations and the image of a “just” globalising superpower. Consider that as early as “November 25, 1942, many American newspapers published reports that 2 million Jews already had been murdered.”

With their technological booty, and public image as “liberators of Jews” the allies soon parted ways with their partners in crime, the Soviet Communists in the pursuit of wealth and technological supremacy from a planned revolution in military innovation and technological consumerism. The ensuing “The Cold War” saw globalist allies and the Soviet Union both accelerate a nuclear energy and technological arms race and engaging in technology-advancing conflicts in the process to parade their ideological and technological prowess to the public.

During the Cold War the Vietnam War stands out for its subjectification of military forces into a set of statistics, and clandestine operations involving the intelligence services. It wasn’t not just an ideological conflict, but an opportunity to put into practice elements of the unethical CIA experiments such as MKULTRA. It proved opportune for advancing technological innovation, along similar unethical trajectories. Many secret operations and psyops, such as Operation Popeye, Operation “Wandering Soul” and the Phoenix Program are now not so secret.

During the Vietnam War, electronic data was highly valued (although the extent of its strategic application was often controversial). As Donald Fisher Harrison highlighted in Archivaria 26 (Summer 1988), “Historians will highlight discussion of [digital] computer use by the American military establishment during this period…[where] data was used to analyze every facet of the war effort.” Operation “Igloo White was the first real-time, computer-driven surveillance operation program, set up during the Vietnam War…The US military sought to build a virtual fence dividing North and South Vietnam.”

The protracted conflict not only proved crucial for developing strategic computers and data analysis, military operations were also being guided by wireless surveillance, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s and National Security Agency (NSA)’s initial forays into electronic eavesdropping, (radiofrequency surveillance) and other electronic military support for the Department of Defense (DOD) which heralded international deep surveillance projects like Eschelon, PRISM and XKeyscore.

In the Post-Cold War period electronic security exploded, and included massive homeland surveillance emerging from 9/11’s “Patriot Act” which assisted the “the Bush Administration…tapping Americans’ phones without warrants.” The infamous electronic surveillance of the public through track and trace apps and AI hijack of internet activities during the recent “pandemic” further exemplifies the “addiction” to our surveillance inherent in the military industrial complex assisting in the “subjectification” of society.

During the Cold War society lived in the shadow of a technologically induced nuclear threat; but it didn’t come. The real threat has since proven to be rapidly evolving technological surveillance and loss of privacy in the “digital age”. Digital addiction is rampant from heightened dependency on and engagement with the digital technology that assists in advancing the surveillance society through the assigned consumerist goal of complete self-surveillance for state, industry and military control.

Society’s subjectification through technology is full-blown in China, an meanwhile the UN seeks centralised global of governance, often called a “new world order.” NGO control of all “stakeholder” governments has become increasingly obvious from the way UN, WHO and WEF together influence policy and drive international governments to institute rapid reforms for the expansion of technology and the restriction of and culling of human roles in society.

The technocratic ideology dictating change has modelled progress on its judgements of and mistrust of all human beings, expressing this paranoia in the hiking surveillance of the population in the stakeholder countries that play a game of divide and rule through internet-connecting technologies and the media. Society is addicted to the incessant consumption of self-defeating technologies.

Trusted actors are expected to mobilise everyone (stakeholder engagement) supportive of the United Nations (UN) 2030 green-washed technology-based agendas, which are shaped by and steered by industry including the public face of industry the World Economic Forum (WEF) assisting the rebranding of capitalism for assisting public consumption of technology and ultimately a technocratic global government.

Out of the UN-WEF relationship “The UN-Forum Partnership was signed in a meeting held at United Nations headquarters between UN Secretary-General António Guterres and World Economic Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab [both are socialists who are indoctrinated in parasitic Communist ideology that bans property, purges difference of opinion, and diverts all profit and power to the state through coercion and deprivations]. These actors are venerated by governments, many of which are headed by WEF-indoctrinated “Young Global Leaders” accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (which embeds not only demands befitting of Communism but emphasises The UN Digital Cooperation Roadmap to achieve it all).

At the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are specific industry-led technology recommendations as well as guidelines to help “protect people in the digital age.” However, it can’t work because “the digital age” is defined by smart phones and smart technology ownership. Also, it is being spoken of as if it might become a threat when it is a threat already.

Neo-feudalist notions of globalisation blended with Communist themes of “utopia” from the influential NGOs are sustaining the digital divide and spurring the affluent to a digital addiction health crisis that is part of the “transformation” of society which raises specters of the “Five Year Plan,” “Great Leap Forward”, and “Cultural Revolution” where the disempowered and purged populaces paid a heavy price for the goals of industry and the paranoid Communist states venerating its technologies.

The smart phone: tool of the rapidly evolving technological surveillance state

According to the media, and widely accepted narrative, it was in the name of “protection,” not “addiction” that the rapidly evolving technological surveillance state grew. With the fall of Communism and cessation of the Cold War, and the fall of the Twin Towers cognitive bandwidth shrunk amidst fear and uncertainties to fit the propagandised terrorist threat that brought countries into alignment with technological surveillance agendas.

The Cold War nuclear threat and 9/11 shockwave were “traumas” visited on society that were ripe for showcasing security-selling and technology-selling existential threats sure to shift novel consumer units like cell phones and CCTV cameras as if it were simply common sense to self-surveil and publish every moment digitally on a server somewhere.

It’s been copiously noted that each “terror” episode rewarded the National Security Agency (NSA) with sweeping powers to monitor and target individuals electronically, covertly and with impunity in the US. Other nations followed with their own heightened surveillance of the public. Surveillance of this electronically invasive nature is a subtle and silent, secretive abuse against health, privacy and human rights using microwave frequencies and beams, and digital means of tracking and tracing people, now including AI, to sift through the public’s personal information in order to target individuals anywhere, any time.

The NSA’s hubris and abuse of public trust was shockingly revealed by the NSA whistle blower, former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. He brought the earth-shattering issues to public attention as did Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, and many others in due course. As The Guardian stated in an article about him, “No government or bureaucracy loves a whistleblower. Those who leak official information will often be denounced, prosecuted or smeared.”

Society’s illegal surveillance (especially though our digital devices and internet), and levels of corruption and war crimes involved in the “national interest” were exposed by Snowden and Assange irrefutably pointing to the illegal pursuits of our governments. It still haunts the “trusted” intelligent services. The nature of the leaked documents left the CIA and NSA in complexities and public trust took a dive.

Bring on the global pandemic and the focus quickly shifted away, but the games without frontiers began again. In no time surveillance was rapidly advanced, and routed through internet-connecting wireless digital devices. The sifting of personal data by AI by the authorities and Big Tech companies interfacing with the intelligence services and military became normalised, “for public protection.” Once shunned as a Communist sin which emphasised freedom of expression as a glory of globalist countries, censorship also became normalised “to protect.”

From 9/11 to the 2007–2009 Great Recession, and then on through Lockdowns and the Pandemic restrictions, the overriding need of the authorities to rapidly enforce new technological forms of surveillance operations on the population stands out. AI integration was the big “showcase” of the pandemic “theatre of war” with social media being the prime target of cognitive warfare against “misinformation” as 5G masts burned and the pandemic narrative was ring-fenced. Facebook accounts became the new technocratic regime’s re-education bootcamps.

Hardwiring digital addiction

Hardwiring digital addiction as “a way of life” for society has been repeatedly achieved through the access point of trauma as technological immersion in the consumption of social media – and other information streams – steadily evolved into a dopamine “coping mechanism.” The need for dopamine was critical the fear-struck minds pouring over the details of media broadcasts during psychologically brutal and physically isolating Lockdowns. However, like all drugs, the effect wears off and more intensified screen addiction followed like A follows B.

It was not an accident that the 2007–2009 Great Recession brought the smart phone to a traumatised consumer as if it were offering a “way out” of the turmoils and that timing chained society to the new technology. The traumatising pandemic chained society tighter to digital devices and integration with the suddenly blossoming 5G infrastructure. The pandemic facilitated a commercial and culturally impacting “psychological experiment” with a clear strategic goal for industry and politicians banking on technological innovations:  wireless technology future connected to the internet called “the IoT (Internet of Things), a.k.a. Industry 4.0, and The Great Reset that gained remarkable attention as the military-controlled internet traffic (information as a weapon) to limit the public discussion about all that was happening to them, and instil paranoia on top of fear.

In the UK such operations to short-circuit democracy were achieved through 77th Brigade and in the US democracy was similarly suspended though the operations of Cyber Command with the compliance of Big Tech, and waged through the weaponisation of social media. This type of offensive is text-book “5th Generation Warfare” or “non-kinetic” warfare in which the addiction of the populace to technology is absolutely key for the mission of changing their context, targeting their beliefs and achieving military industrial strategic goals. We used to call it “mind-control.”

Technologically driven actors, like the intelligence agencies and industry influencers, have long been weaponising society’s addiction to, and faith in, information in a world dominated by wireless technology and the internet. We look less at our history books today than we do at a future dominated by “smart cities” and perpetually revised digital headlines that delete our history over time to stay “current” and “politically correct”.

Technocracy: a religion of sweet promises?

The World Economic Forum, the public face of industry’s urgent and rapid technological transformations stated during the technologically driven pandemic that, “Smart cities are a legacy of 9/11. After the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, New York adopted anti-terrorism and surveillance strategies that have been adopted all around the world. The ‘smart city’ movement is a global effort by city governments to harness technologies for improved city management.” Heightened surveillance in the city is to be admired, especially if it becomes “adopted all around the world”. I wonder why that is? Do Palestinians in Hebron admire the surveillance? Governments internationally are key in advancing smart developments with such devastating implications for freedom and human rights globally.

The mainstreamed worship of the technology future is like a religion making sweet promises. Karl Marx, whose views unleashed Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao (as well as Guterres and Schwabb) once said, “Religion is the opium of the people”. Today, the drug is technology, or more precisely, the screen of a smart phone. The smart phone is society’s “gift” from the globalist public relations “dealers” for digital technology, the UN, WHO, and WEF who preach their shared narrative of a sustainable future digitally managed with a secondary role for humans when AI runs the “smart world”.

Smart technology’s linchpin, the addictive smart phone has become “digital heroin” in our society, and the Globalists are Big Tech’s East India Company bringing an addictive cargo of digital heroin our way. Our addiction leaves us in a dopamine seeking cycle, as digital technology hacks into our bodies through our pleasure and reward seeking biological mechanisms. Today we hear sermons from the WEF’s electric-fenced fortress in Switzerland defended by the Globalist NGO’s personal army. Their prophecy is of a future where men, women, and children will be no more than “hackable animals” in their experiment. They welcome the population overdosing on screen time with many people becoming video game addicts in an automated technocratically mediated world takes root.

Strategic digital addiction: “Gaming disorder” hits the military

WEF believes video game play “builds new communities by connecting people…Brought together by servers and matchmaking algorithms, these strangers quickly learn how to work together to achieve a common goal.” The Globalists’s goals? WEF’s views came online shortly after the WHO announced video games can cause mental health problems and addiction after recognising “Gaming Disorder.” WEF may see how (video) gaming brings like-minded people together to solve imaginary problems, but they can tear families apart and leave people excluded from reality and responsibility. Among military personnel we see gaming disorder is on the rise as recruits and veterans alike succumb to the addiction in coping with military-related stress. Perhaps it’s the military’s own fault?

In 2017 we learned from The Conversation, that, “Violent video games have become embedded within American culture…For the U.S. military, the rise of first-person shooters has been a welcome development. In recent years, the military has encouraged many of its soldiers to partake in the thrill of violent video games as a way to continue combat training, even when not on active duty.” As the article also makes clear, “…psychologists Brock Bastian, Jolanda Jetten and Helena R.M. Radke were able to use brain scans to show that playing violent video games had the potential to desensitize players to real-life violence and the suffering of others.” What else do we learn? “…journalist Evan Wright wrote in his book “Generation Kill” that solders were on “intimate terms with the culture of video games, reality TV shows and internet porn.” 

Regardless of its cache or subject matter, gaming technology was introduced to the military to do exactly what WEF claims it does – get people to collaborate to achieve a goal. It’s also used as a ploy to recruit youth. As reported in 2022 by the BBC, the “innovative” use of gaming software that “allows real-life warfare scenarios to be recreated virtually and explored.” It seems the plague of addiction “infecting” the military can only become more hardwired. As the government sees video games as rehearsals for real-life military engagements, the public are right to feel a bit uneasy.

The British Army promoted gaming in order to engage the prospective recruits at the suitably named “Insomnia” gaming festival because, “competitive gamers do have skill sets the military wants – fast reactions, good communication and problem-solving skills.” Aren’t they also trigger happy and robbed of sleep? And what will they use to cope with military stress?

It seems addiction is inevitable and encouraged in the military, and the propaganda of the British Army is breathtaking, as a medic stops to comment: “Playing games, especially with friends back at home, is way to stay connected, prioritise mental health and get away from the day job for a bit [to cope with stress?],” he says. A charity outfit profiting from the military-video gaming trend claimed, gaming can help veterans in the transition to civilian life because in landing a job “mental health issues, are more surmountable.” The mental health casualties on “civvy street” and in the military pile up and the gaming drive continues. But we see where all that gaming propaganda was really leading in an article from 2024. Initial steps have begun to introduce generative AI to “transform the practice of war gaming as an exercise to train human commanders, perfect operational plans and doctrines and develop stronger strategic cultures.” Another aspect of AI integration is called Human Machine Teaming (HMT) defined as “human interactions with autonomous uncrewed systems and AI agents”. The Ukraine has been the testing ground for this type of “cutting edge warfare.” The military, like the political arena is increasingly in the hands of addictive personalities in control of the most dangerous technology in the world – AI, as admitted by many of those working to create generative AI. A new arms race in the making? What can go wrong?

The significance of digital addiction

The addictive internet connecting device, the smart phone allows people to play addictive video games anywhere and at any time. Today the device’s new image is “ruggedness” and “defense grade durability.” Military-grade technologies are being manufactured and sold through the military’s industry mediators, called Big Tech (Google, Facebook (Meta), Amazon Twitter (X)) in ways to encourage consumer addiction, and uptake of everything from smart phones to AVs. Big Tech’s links to military agencies aren’t a big secret.

The intelligence community and silicon valley have a long relationship. No surprise that, “The intelligence community wanted to shape Silicon Valley’s supercomputing efforts at their inception so they would be useful for both military and homeland security purposes. [The CIA and NSA sought] cooperation between the government and the emerging supercomputing companies…[to] gather huge amounts of data and make intelligent sense of it.” A chief goal was to make “massive amounts of information useful for both the private sector as well as the intelligence community.” How many people realise that, “The internet itself was created because of an intelligence effort[?]”

Integral to that achievement are The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is “the agency responsible for developing emerging technologies for military, intelligence, and national security purposes.” DARPA helped develop the “architecture and scaffolding of the World Wide Web” and is a key agency focused on technologies of war.

According to New Scientist, “DARPA likes to present itself as a uniquely nimble outfit. Unbound by the usual red tape, it can do the kind of “high-risk, high-reward” research way beyond the purview of other branches of government.” In 2011 Google bought Motorola, inventor of the first cell phone and based its “long-range research group, Advanced Technology and Products (ATAP), on an outfit known for delivering blockbusters like stealth bombers, autonomous cars, and the Internet.” Google and DARPA’s input created the Moto X smart phone, illustrating the overlap of military and industry to keep their technology integrated into smart phones. According to Quartz, “Google’s true origin partly lies in CIA and NSA research grants for mass surveillance.” It explains a lot about why getting the population hooked on the internet and addicted to smart phones has transpired, it has been necessary for the optimum generation of intelligence data (Big Data) for Big Tech, Industry and the intelligence networks. Society’s electronic heroin is the parasitic brainchild of the intelligence agencies.

Smart phone innovations, including apps, but also the marketing of military “features” and “looks” contribute to device obsession and overuse, which can bring the cognitive, physical and psychological side effects society is experiencing, the consequences of this “digital heroin” that are killing productivity, giving AI an upper hand in being justified, and leaves society strung out and dependent, with mental and physical injuries.

For the Globalists at WEF this is all necessary for reinventing capitalism through transformation of the economy (to digital ID and digital currency) and demolishing the current society “to build back better.” Part of the architecture is to be implanted. Kathleen Philips a WEF Agenda contributor said in 2022 that, “Technology will become more intertwined with the body in the form of implants” which extends the Internet of Things (IoT) into the Internet of Bodies (IOB), part of WEF’s desire to dehumanise humans into what WEF’s favourite historian Yuval Noah Harari has called “hackable animals.” Plenty laugh and get back to scrolling. Is it funny?

It seems like a war on humanity, but all attempts to publish the suggestion are fact checked and reframed as, you-know-what. What if technology isn’t the saviour that blissfuly engaged scrollers of social media imagine, but is the subjugator of society, as suggested by Big Tech’s involvement with the intelligence agencies and wider political concerns? 

At Davos in 2024 Klaus Schwabb of WEF stated that whoever controls AI will control the world, sounding like a military commander. WEF seeks to recruit through its propaganda and guides the addiction and the veneration technology that is a threat to democracy and humanity’s place in the future. We are part of the problem in consuming it and letting it dominate our lives enough to control our sense of reality. Digital devices, which are objects created out of a military necessity, clearly are a weapon causing untold harm from addiction and other problems.

Moving away from this type of smart technology is healthy, and it might help us see clearly that life beyond it is possible, we are not here to be demolished, dehumanised or integrated into a single myopic view or supremacist biosynthetic agenda. A digital detox can help us reclaim our humanity, piece by piece.

The “gift” of technology is a double edged sword and there is more than meets the eye concerning society’s digital addiction as revealed in the interplay of industry, intelligence agencies and military objectives.

Credit: image courtesy of Pixabay

By Sarah Aminoff, Kate Kheel, and Patricia Burke of Safe Tech International, Images Courtesy Flo Freshman

Kent Chamberlin’s response to Psychology Today is anything but a “tin foil hat” rebuttal. Chamberlain critiques a blog article by Joe Pierre recently published in Psychology Today entitled “Tin Foil Hats: Tired Trope or Sign of the Times?”. The article is dismissive of many health effects regarding exposures to radio frequency radiation from cellphones, Wi-Fi, or cell towers etc.

Expert Critique of “Psychology Today” Blog

As both a representative of a state commission tasked with exploring the health and environmental effects of wireless radiation, and as a well-respected expert in the field, Professor Kent Chamberlin (PhD) is well-positioned to provide insightful comments to Psychology Today’s Editor in Chief.

Tin Foil Hat – History of Science, Spoof and Fiction

The tin foil hat trope that Joe Pierre refers to in Psychology Today has been around for decades and has been used to discredit those concerned about the health impacts of wireless radiation. But what is the actual history of this term, and what purpose does it serve in shaping public sentiment?

According to the website TV tropes: “When a writer wants to establish a character as a Conspiracy Theorist, a Crazy Survivalist, or another kind of paranoidCloudcuckoolander, they usually give them hats made out of tinfoil to wear, ostensibly to protect themselves from The Government‘s Mind Control rays.”

Science Fiction Origins of Tin Foil Hats

Tin foil hats were first referenced as protection against mind interference in the 1927 science fiction short story The Tissue-Culture King by Julian Huxley, which features caps made of foil that are used by the story’s protagonist to block telepathy, according to Business Insider.

Historical Fact, Not Fiction

“Microwave hearing” was discovered in the 1960s by military researcher Alan Frey. According to the Cellular Phone Task Force, “The “hearing,” [] didn’t happen via normal sound waves perceived through the ear. It apparently occurred somewhere in the brain itself, as microwaves interacted with the brain’s cells, which generate tiny electrical fields. Frey proved also that many deaf people and animals could hear microwave radiation. This phenomenon came to be known as the Frey effect, or simply “microwave hearing.”” (Frey also later reported that microwaves could induce “leakage” in the barrier between the circulatory system and the brain.)

Microwave hearing is a widely accepted medical phenomenon associated with RF exposure.

In 1962, Allen H. Frey discovered that the microwave auditory effect can be blocked by a patch of wire mesh (rather than foil) placed above the temporal lobe.

MIT Student Researchers and Tin Foil Hats: “Clearly the government must have started the tinfoil hat craze so it could more effectively spy on its citizens?”

In 2005, a group of MIT students found that tin foil hats do shield their wearers from radio waves over most of the tested spectrum, yet amplified certain frequencies, (as listed in the MIT catalogue of hacks.)

The IHTFP Gallery is dedicated to documenting the history of hacking at MIT. “The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and “ethical” prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!). Note that this has nothing to do with computer (or phone) hacking (which we call “cracking”). – http://hacks.mit.edu/

“In February 2005, some CSAIL graduate students “Published” a paper on the effect of tinfoil hats on blocking mind control satellites. They measured the attenuation of radio signals as a function of frequency and determined that certain frequencies which are reserved for government use are actually amplified by the tinfoil hats. Clearly the government must have started the tinfoil hat craze so it could more effectively spy on its citizens.”

The empirical study can be found here. 

Tin Foil Hat Styles: The Classical, the Fez, and the Centurion

The MIT students, prodded by “a desire to play with some expensive equipment,” tested the effectiveness of foil helmets at blocking various radio frequencies,” according to this Atlantic article.  “Using two layers of Reynolds aluminum foil, they constructed three helmet designs, dubbed the Classical, the Fez, and the Centurion, and then looked at the strength of the transmissions between a radio-frequency signal generator and a receiver antenna placed on various parts of their subjects’ bare and helmet-covered heads. “

According to the Atlantic, “While the underlying concept is good, the typical foil helmet fails in design and execution. An effective Faraday cage fully encloses whatever it’s shielding, but a helmet that doesn’t fully cover the head doesn’t fully protect it. If the helmet is designed or worn with a loose fit, radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation can still get up underneath the brim from below.” 

The Atlantic article further mentions, “The helmets shielded their wearers from radio waves over most of the tested spectrum. (YouTube user Mrfixitrick likewise demonstrates the blocking power of his foil toque against his wireless modem), but to his surprise, it amplified certain frequencies: those in the 2.6 Ghz (allocated for mobile communications and broadcast satellites) and 1.2 Ghz (allocated for aeronautical radionavigation and space-to-Earth and space-to-space satellites) bands.”

Here’s an Actual Tech Update About Actual Shielding

Fast forward to 2021. Instead of tin foil hats being researched by MIT students, researchers are looking at “Electromagnetic Shielding Properties of Knitted Fabric Made from Polyamide Threads Coated with Silver.” If researchers are pouring money into investigating “a textile material of low surface mass for its protection against electromagnetic radiation (EMR)” then why exactly would concern about radio frequency exposures be ridiculed by the likes of Psychology Today?

Public Awareness and Policy Has Yet to Catch Up to The Science

The “tin foil” hat meme used by psychologist Dr. Pierre indicates that public awareness has not yet caught up to the science. EMF exposures are not science fiction, but science fact. And as Kent Chamberlin shares in his letter to Psychology Today, “There are many actions that can be taken to protect people from radiation exposure, but that will not happen until the risks are acknowledged.” 

Kent Chamberlin concludes his letter offering a helpful suggestion to Psychology Today.

“Your publication is highly regarded, and it has a broad reach.  This provides an opportunity to bring about significant changes in your field.  As an example, you might want to consider running a series of articles covering the neuropsychiatric effects of wireless radiation, approaches used by medical professionals to diagnose those effects, means for lowering wireless radiation exposure, and how to integrate radiation exposure issues into a counseling practice.”

Additional commentary was submitted to Psychology Today about the blog ridiculing individuals regarding their physiology and/or a medical diagnosis, by Magda Havas of Trent University, here.

“My objection, in addition to name calling–which is a form of bullying–is based on science as I have been working with people who have an intolerance to electromagnetic frequencies for decades.”

Fellow Canadian Frank Clegg of Canadians for Safe Technology (C4ST) also addressed the derogatory use of the term “tin foil hats” by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this year. 

“[ ] there are Canadians who are adversely affected by exposure to wireless radiation, experiencing headaches, sleep disturbances, heart abnormalities and other adverse effects when over exposed to wireless devices. Many are physician diagnosed. These include people from all walks of life and sadly, also children. Some are unable to work and have lost their homes and are on disability benefits. The term “tin foil hatters” is sometimes used for these individuals. This can only further marginalize them as well as being hurtful.”

With growing evidence of risks to safety, security, sustainability, privacy, health, environmental justice, and human rights, the tin foil hat ‘trope’ is no longer a clever, benign, ethical prank or practical joke.

The time is long overdue for science, public policy and the media to cease the ridicule – and with humility, to remove their unseemly dunce caps.