Oh, How I Love My Novophone

When a new season of Mad Men — the AMC drama set in a Manhattan advertising agency in the early 1960s — is released, we Netflix it.  Because, well, really, who can resist the allure of Don Draper or the curves of Joan Holloway?

The many secretaries on the show are continually lifting old-school telephone receivers to their shapely ears as they transcribe shorthand at their typewriters.  Seeing that lifting action repeated again and again made me realize how much, in this cell phone age, I have missed a real telephone: a full-size receiver with good sound quality and a nice heft.  The kind you can prop between your ear and your shoulder and still be clearly heard.  (Since 2005, Matt and I have had no landline — only cell phones.)

“I want a retro handset,” I said to Matt as Mad Men played in the background.

“Well, they do make them for cell phones,” Matt said.

“Really?“

“Really.”  And he sent me to this site.

The folks at Novophone — and soon, I imagine, other companies — do indeed make the very object of my desire, but for $27.95 — a price steep enough that I hemmed and hawed for several weeks over the decision to drop so much cash on what is essentially a mound of molded plastic with a cord.

But then I happened across the third act of this episode of This American Life (which begins at minute 45:55): an interview with journalist Christopher Ketcham, who wrote this article for GQ on the biological effects of cell phone radiation.  (As a sidenote, there is also this recent article on the subject in Harper’s Magazine.)

On the surface, the results of research into the matter seem to be a toss-up, with half of the studies showing negative health effects (i.e., increased brain cancer risk), and half not.  But when the research is divided by who funded it (the cell phone industry, or independent funding agencies), an interesting pattern emerges: while only 25% of studies funded by the industry show biological effects, 75% of the independently-funded studies do.  The risks appear to be greatest for individuals who begin using cell phones under the age of 20, as their brains are still developing and their skulls are thinner than adult skulls, and therefore do not provide as much of a radiation barrier.  But young’uns aren’t the only ones at risk.

There was the nudge I needed to get my cell away from my ear.  I ordered my Novophone that very afternoon.  The handset comes in two colors (red or black) and two styles (with or without a button on the handset that allows you to answer the phone without touching your cell).

I opted for black and buttonless, since various reviewers at Amazon.com (where I ordered the phone with free shipping) commented that it was easy to accidentally hit the button and hang up in the middle of a call.  (If you’re interested, check here to see if your cell is compatible with the Novophone, or if you’d need an adapter.)

I have to say: I LOVE this phone handset.  The feel of it in my hand, and the quality of the sound, are exactly what I had hoped for.  And it has the added bonus of cutting down my daily EMF exposure!  I’d had a hands-free headset for my cell, but never liked it much — and the people on the other end of the line had complained that I sounded like I was talking from a tunnel.  Not so with the Novophone!

As I talk on it, I invariably think of the Mad Men secretaries, and of the inventions that each generation creates and brings into widespread use, insisting on their innocuousness until faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary (the type of evidence that takes decades to build and great effort to bring to light).  The Mad Men era had asbestos, leaded gasoline and paint, and widespread cigarette use.  My best guesses for our era’s follies?  To name a few: widespread use of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors like flame retardants (which we’ve applied to just about every upholstered, electronic, and synthetic-furniture item in the U.S.), and phthalates and parabens (which we’ve managed to mix into just about every personal care product Americans use).

And, of course, cell phones.  Only time will tell.