Wi-fi allergy, or “electromagnetic sensitivity,” might keep 2% of the population away from Starbucks and McDonald’s for the foreseeable future.
Steve Miller, a UK DJ who really loves your peaches and wishes to shake your tree, has come forward with the newfangled illness and a tale of woe including having to ditch his work at parties in Ibiza. Now that’s sad. Miller claims he is increasingly trapped in the concrete walled home he purchased to escape the ever-present connection that permeates our lives.
Experts are not impressed by the claims, however, citing a plethora of reasons why the condition can’t exist. A bit in the Telegraph roundly debunks the claims of Miller and others who feel they may be “sensitive” to Wi-fi, positing that the people may just be suffering from pervasive ignorance about science.
Wifi consists of electromagnetic waves, just like light or radio waves, with a frequency of 2.4GHz, giving it a wavelength of around 12.5cm. There is some variation but not enough of a range to make any difference. 2.4GHz is on the long end of microwave, getting close to radio, rather similar to mobile phone signals. It transmits at much lower power than a mobile phone mast, so even if those signals were harmful, Wifi would be less so.
Mr Miller makes no mention of mobile phones, he is only bothered by Wifi. If it is electromagnetic radiation in general he’s sensitive to, he’s in real trouble as radio waves and visible light flood our atmosphere every minute of every day.
Experts don’t think that Miller is faking it per se, though- their diagnosis? Agoraphobia.
