Roger Collier

B ritney Spears' latest tweet just passed through my liver. A Facebook status containing five exclamation marks and a :) just entered my small intestine. And Rosie O'Donnell's most recent blog entry is causing a burning sensation in my spleen.

The proliferation of wireless Internet access has me worried. Unless you live somewhere remote, you are probably submerged in the Internet right now. Is this 24/7 Internet bath harmless? Or are our bodies decaying from prolonged exposure to parodies of Lady GaGa videos?

Wireless networks are everywhere -- in libraries, in coffee shops, in airports. No matter where you go, you can't escape the Internet. It is all around us, all the time, like an earthbound cloud drifting at 54 megabits per second.

In Kanata, where I live, almost every home has Wi-Fi. I just clicked on "View Wireless Networks" on my laptop and was not surprised to find that, within range of my bedroom, there are eight wireless networks. When I got married nine years ago, I had no idea that the majority of activity in my bedroom would one day be online instead of on-mattress. I guess the Internet never gets a "headache."

During the dial-up era, the Internet dribbled into our homes over telephone wires, beep-booped through clunky modems and trickled directly into our computers. It didn't radiate throughout the entire house, contaminating the very air we breathe.

Unfortunately, the Internet has escaped the physical constraints of wires, and there's no putting it back in. High-speed ICs and RF technology make it easy to configure PCs into P2P WLANs. If you understood the previous sentence, you might also know this: You are a huge nerd.

Some people, thank goodness, are fighting against the great evil that is Wi-Fi. Earlier this year, a group of parents in Collingwood, Ont., took on the Simcoe County District School Board, accusing board officials of ignoring the dangers of the wireless network at Mountain View Elementary School.

The group's leader, an environmentalist, claimed that the developing bones of children were at risk of being damaged by microwave radiation emitted from the network. According to an article in a Collingwood newspaper, The Enterprise-Bulletin, the parent committee distributed an e-mail listing symptoms commonly exhibited by people near wireless transmitters: "The symptoms include head-aches, dizziness, vertigo, fainting, blurred vision, distorted vision, skin rash, racing heart rate (tachycardia), attention deficit, difficulty concentrating, poor short term memory, tingling inside or under skin, sinus problems, asthma, bronchitis, skin rash, itching, burning skin, red flushing face or ears, nausea, insomnia (can't sleep at night), dehydration, unquenchable thirst, among others."

So there you have it. Wi-Fi turns you into a thirsty, itchy, dizzy, wheezing, forgetful, red-faced insomniac. All this so you can check e-mail on the toilet.

The school board officials downplayed the parents' concerns, arguing that the wireless network adhered to Health Canada standards and was completely safe. They even brought in Tony Muc, chief physicist at Radiation Health and Safety Consulting, who assured everyone the "low-level, non-ionizing" electromagnetic radiation from wireless networks posed no health risks.

Don't be fooled. This tactic -- bringing in an expert to dispel irrational fears with "science" and "facts" -- is often used by evidence-lovers. Just ask educators in the United Kingdom.

In 2007, British teachers raised concerns about their students being used as guinea pigs to test the safety of Wi-Fi in classrooms. The Health Protection Agency investigated, and found a year's worth of Wi-Fi exposure was equivalent to talking on a cellphone for 20 minutes. In fact, radio waves in wireless networks are so low in power, at around 100 milliwatts, that they create 100,000 times less radiation than a microwave oven.

But these facts just raise more questions. What is a milliwatt? Can I download movies on my microwave? How long does it take to reheat a burrito on a wireless router?

Debate about radiation is irrelevant anyway. The most dangerous thing about wireless Internet is not the medium , but the message. Most online content is rubbish -- a hodgepodge of nude photos, celebrity gossip and videos of dogs driving cars.

The Internet rots your brain. Doesn't it make sense that it could also wreak havoc on the rest of your organs? Wi-Fi is convenient, no doubt, but the rewards aren't worth the risks. Let's get Lindsay Lohan out of our kidneys and back where she belongs. In rehab.