Cell phone buzz

As honeybees have begun disappearing in alarming numbers for no discernible reason (with frightening implications for our food supply if bee pollination of our crops falls dramatically), the theory that cell phones are to blame has taken flight.

Proponents of the theory — namely, that the spread of cell phones will lead to the bees' extinction and, by extension, our extinction — like to vaguely cite research of mobile phone radiation disorienting bees in flight. But the same thing happens to me when I'm driving. I think it's just harder to fly straight when you're holding a phone in one hand.

“There is zero evidence” that cell phones are having an adverse effect on bees, said Jefferey Pettis, research leader of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's honeybee lab, to the online magazine Salon. John McDonald, a biologist and beekeeper, called the cell phone theories “a major source of irritation.”

Because this is not the first time that mobile phones have been fingered as harbingers of death (causing brain tumors and sterility, etc.), it may be useful to examine why they are so widely distrusted and why they are such frequent and easy scapegoats for our fears. Sure, the guy sitting behind you on the bus yapping loudly on his cell phone might easily give rise to the notion that this invention is society's doom. And it's always stressful to see the driver next to you on the highway compose a text message as they pass by. But with the convenience granted to us by mobile phones growing ever harder to overstate (especially as they gain new functions like video), they may be the perfect boogey man for anyone who fears the hidden costs attached to any indulgence. Maybe our innate threat detectors warn us that there must be a higher price for such a luxury than our monthly mobile bills.

Or maybe we just don't get along well with things that buzz in our ears.