Is 5G technology really dangerous for our health?

What are the differences between 1G through 5G? What does it all mean?
Interesting Engineering

Since the very inception of 5G, it has been rife with controversy. Scientists have stated contradictory views and studies on how our health will be affected by the latest innovation in high-speed internet. With all this confusion, it’s difficult to understand if 5G is a positive step forward or detrimental to our health. Perhaps it’s both.

What exactly is 5G? 

What are the differences between 1G through 5G? What does it all mean? 

The G actually stands for Generation, and the number in front is the signal strength of the internet - ‘gigabits.’ 

The first ‘G’ — 1G made it possible for mobile phones to communicate with each other in the form of analog dialogue.  

Then came 2G, which brought us digital audio. This changed our audio from analog to digital.

3G really changed everything as it enabled us to browse the internet, share images, and send emails. Even though this was just a short time ago, it’s hard to even remember a time when this was not possible. 3G was an amazing step forward for technology. 

4G delivered us into the age of broadband. After the introduction of broadband, security improved greatly, multimedia services and internet providers reduced their prices, and we were graced with cloud services - offering us seemingly endless storage capacity for all our photos, documents, and files.

This is all pretty incredible, especially when we think of how quickly it was developed. However, people wanted more, faster, cheaper internet with better connectivity.

In response, 5G was developed, which promises to deliver on customer demands. And boy, is it fast. The time it takes for information to get from one device to another is less than one millisecond — that’s fast! The 4.5G most of us use today provides one gigabyte of speed — 5G will be 10 gigabytes of speed per second! That’s an amazing difference.

So, how did they get it so fast? Well, 5G generates electromagnetic radiation, creating an electromagnetic field. Due to this high frequency, the internet is able to work must faster. This high speed will also make it possible for your car to be driven remotely and even for surgical operations to be performed remotely! Just think of the possibilities for the future.

However, this super-fast development has some a bit nervous and even fearful of its consequences. 

The primary concern? You guessed it — radiation. And as we know, too much exposure to radiation can greatly impact the health of all living things. 

With the shorter wavelengths generated by 5G, more cell towers will be necessary to transmit that high-speed internet. In order to transfer all that speedy internet, there will need to be a wireless antenna every 492.13 feet! Pretty much everywhere we look! Yikes! 

So, will the benefits of 5G outweigh the negatives? The debate rages on, and it looks like we’ll have to wait a bit longer in order to answer that question.