We should have known, when a bastion of higher education like Lakehead University banned the soothing beams of enlightenment known as Wi-Fi, that fear of this new technology would only grow.
Wired reports more occasions of progress being halted in schools and communities, and some bizarre anecdotes within the “EMF-sensitive” community :
“A professor called it Compulsive Risk Assessment Psychosis, otherwise known as CRAP,'” said Rod Read of ElectroSensitivity-UK, a registered charity in Britain. “He says everyone is deluded. It insults and abuses people who are sick. I thought that went out with the Victorian era.”
British author Kate Figes recently described a sensation akin to being “prodded all over your body by 1,000 fingers” when in the presence of a Wi-Fi signal. When Michael Bevington fell ill, he blamed a network recently installed at the prestigious school where he’d worked for 28 years: “Over the weekend, away from the classroom, I felt completely normal.”
Studies are cited, showing no risk from non-ionizing radiation from cell phones, and that the power of a wi-fi signal is insignificant next to that — one tenth of a watt at most — but the anecdotes and backlash continue.
Flashback: No more reckless experimentation at this college
