Sat, 21 November 2009
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There are now more mobile phones in Germany than there are Germans and a new poll shows most Germans are convinced their mobiles are slowly killing them. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm switching mine off.
In the nation that invented the word "angst," the fear barometer of the respected Emnid Institute is a well-known gauge of German angst levels. The latest Emnid survey shows that, despite terrorism jitters, more Germans are afraid of harmful effects from mobiles than of the threat of radical Islamic terrorists.
A whopping 55 per cent said they believe cell phones emit harmful levels of electromagnetic and low-level microwave radiation. Germans even have a word for this unseen killer: "Elektrosmog." 
In contrast to their fear of insidious Elektrosmog, just 38 per cent believe Germany faces any imminent terrorist threat.
And that Elektrosmog percentage level was nationwide, both rural and urban. In urban areas the angst levels are much higher. In the major port of Hamburg, which has a population of nearly 2 million, Emnid researchers found that 82 per cent are convinced their mobiles pose a serious health threat.
Ironically, the survey findings coincide with figures from the telecommunications industry showing that there are now more than 90 million mobiles in Germany, compared to 82 million human beings.
A quarter of those human beings - presumably infants and inmates and invalids - still have no mobile. That means the vast majority of Germans have at least one mobile phone if not two or more.
And mobile ownership is higher in eastern Germany where, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many people went from having no individual home phone connection of their own at all to having only mobiles, bypassing landlines entirely.
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