Heads you win, tails I lose. That's exactly the way I feel. I can't live without my mobile phone. And yet in my heart of hearts I feel that I should stop using it.

Before you jump to conclusions, let me tell you I'm neither anti-development nor anti-high-tech. Yet the thought of getting into a time machine and transporting myself back to the "good old world" of fixed line telephones didn't occur to me out of nowhere. There are infinite health hazards in this modern (or post-modern, if you like it) world. Air and water (and all other) pollution, acid rain, pesticides and insecticides in vegetables and fruits, high fat content in fast and packed food, the perils of red meat and passive (in my case, active) smoking have for years transpired to turn modern life into a nightmare.

As if those dangers were not enough, now comes another definitive warning: Mobile phone use could affect sperm count and could be linked to a decline in fertility.

It's possible that most men over 40 today would not be bothered about sperm count because their only fear is becoming impotent. So will they continue using cell-phones?

If you ask me, this is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

It's true the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) study shows that only men who use mobile phones for more than four hours a day face the risk of falling sperm count. I sure have never used it for that long. But how can I be certain the electromagnetic radiation, or the heat mobile phones generate, doesn't cause more harm than what has been discovered till now?

It has been claimed at different times that mobile phones can cause brain cancer, sleeping problems, headaches, memory loss and nausea. Wait, there's more: changes to the blood-brain barrier and blood pressure too have been measured in mobile phone users. Independent expert groups have found evidence, too (though insufficient), to back up these claims.

It's also been alleged that radiation emissions from mobile phones could make users susceptible to other brain conditions, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and multiple sclerosis.

And then children below eight were advised not to use mobile phones after an "authoritative report" linked heavy use to ear and brain tumours.

But the only truly established risk for mobile phone use till the ASRM report was published was that of an accident while driving.

I can't say what the more than 440 million users on the mainland and their brethren in Hong Kong (which has the highest rate of mobile phone penetration in the world) think about the telecom device after the ASRM study. But it has certainly left me wondering if the telecom wonder would ever be as harmless as its fixed-line predecessor.

Please think for a moment, not more, what the world was before it was hit by the mobile phone cloudburst. We were free from at least one additional fear, the fear of catching an electromagnetic disease. And mother earth was not burdened with hundreds of millions of discarded mobile phones every year.

But then life was not even half as easy. And most of us love our life as it is today. I doubt the average 40-plus (or for that matter, 50- or 60-plus) man could live without his favourite mobile gizmo today.

No, you were wrong if you thought I was facing a Hamlet-like existential crisis. I am in no mood to go into a soliloquy like the Prince of Denmark. For me, the question is not "To be, or not to be." I have always wanted it "to be". And "to be" it shall be.

Just that I don't want to sigh like Ophelia: "O, woe is me,

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see."

Email: zouhr@chinadaily.com.hk

(China Daily 11/03/2006 page4)