Study finds that sleeping next to the Wi-Fi router won’t clear your calendar for the next day

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This human experimental study examined whether all-night exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic energy (RF EME) from Wi-Fi affected sleep-dependent memory consolidation and its biological indicators. Thirty males were recruited to spend 5 nights sleeping in the laboratory where they were exposed to the RF EME from Wi-Fi and sham exposure on the 3rd and 5th nights. Memory performance was evaluated with various cognitive tasks while learning-associated brain activity was collected via an electroencephalogram (EEG). The study found exposure to Wi-Fi had no effect on emotional or procedural memory, but there was improvement in the declarative memory task. However, there was no effect on the sleep-specific brain activity parameters recorded by the EEG for any of the assessed memory parameters. Therefore, the authors concluded that the beneficial effect of Wi-Fi exposure on declarative memory was likely a chance finding, and that Wi-Fi does not affect sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

Effects of 2.45 GHz Wi-Fi exposure on sleep-dependent memory consolidation

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Despite the small sample size of males for this study, the findings add to the growing scientific body of evidence that RF EME exposure from Wi-Fi sources does not adversely affect sleep. A replication study with a larger sample size is required before concluding that the beneficial effect on declarative memory is more than a chance finding. The Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR)’s review on ‘Potential health effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF)’ also found a lack of evidence that RF affects cognitive functions in humans. This is in line with ARPANSA’s view that there is currently no substantiated scientific evidence that exposure to RF EME at levels below the limits set in the ARPANSA Standard (RPS S-1) cause any adverse health effects.