<p>As of 2009 <a href="https://www.livescience.com/52978-electromagnetic-hypersensitivity-cause-unclear.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">apparently not</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In Rubin's 2009 paper, he looked at studies analyzing symptoms and investigating triggers in more than 1,000 people who reported having electromagnetic hypersensitivity.</p>
<p>He concluded in the paper that &quot;repeated experiments have been unable to replicate this phenomenon under controlled conditions.&quot;</p>
<p>It may be that Wi-Fi isn't the culprit, but that something else is to blame for people's symptoms, Rubin said. A number of health and environmental conditions, different for each individual, could be responsible.</p>
<p>Another factor at play could be the &quot;nocebo effect,&quot; in which a person's belief that exposure to EMF triggers symptoms actually causes the real symptoms to appear, even if no exposure occur has occurred, he added.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether Wi-Fi &quot;allergies&quot; are real, the suffering certainly is, Rubin said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And I think I tracked down the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19681059" rel="nofollow noreferrer">actual paper</a> that is talking about; it's been reasonably summarized by the press.</p>
<p>I honestly expected researchers to stop bothering after that, but I found some <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29125197" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2017 experiments</a>, which were also negative:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the double-blind trials, no significant difference in symptom severity or exposure detection was found for any of the participants between the two conditions. Belief of exposure strongly predicted symptom severity score for all participants.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the latter experiments, they really went out of their way to remove possible non-response causes, including testing people in their usual places where they reported the problems (using portable equipment), taking into account the history of their complaints, i.e. using equipment that was as close as possible to the sources the subjects claimed to be sensitive to, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeated_measures_design#Counterbalancing" rel="nofollow noreferrer">counterbalancing</a> for time of day and time on task etc.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-19T21:36:41.647Z
2017-12-19T22:28:43.010Z
2020-06-17T09:55:31.633Z
got trolled too much this week
<p>HSP's are often very sensitive persons for all kind of sensories, but are there any experiments that they can feel EM-waves or are more affected by them?</p>

<abnormal-psychology>
Is there evidence or indication that highly sensitive people (HSP) can feel elektromagnetic waves?
Marijn 
# Is there evidence or indication that highly sensitive people (HSP) can feel elektromagnetic waves?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-12-19)

HSP's are often very sensitive persons for all kind of sensories, but are there any experiments that they can feel EM-waves or are more affected by them?

**Tags:** abnormal-psychology


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-12-19. Score: 3

As of 2009 [apparently not](https://www.livescience.com/52978-electromagnetic-hypersensitivity-cause-unclear.html).

> In Rubin's 2009 paper, he looked at studies analyzing symptoms and investigating triggers in more than 1,000 people who reported having electromagnetic hypersensitivity.
>
> He concluded in the paper that "repeated experiments have been unable to replicate this phenomenon under controlled conditions."
>
> It may be that Wi-Fi isn't the culprit, but that something else is to blame for people's symptoms, Rubin said. A number of health and environmental conditions, different for each individual, could be responsible.
>
> Another factor at play could be the "nocebo effect," in which a person's belief that exposure to EMF triggers symptoms actually causes the real symptoms to appear, even if no exposure occur has occurred, he added.
>
> Regardless of whether Wi-Fi "allergies" are real, the suffering certainly is, Rubin said.

And I think I tracked down the [actual paper](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19681059) that is talking about; it's been reasonably summarized by the press.

I honestly expected researchers to stop bothering after that, but I found some [2017 experiments](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29125197), which were also negative:

> In the double-blind trials, no significant difference in symptom severity or exposure detection was found for any of the participants between the two conditions. Belief of exposure strongly predicted symptom severity score for all participants.

In the latter experiments, they really went out of their way to remove possible non-response causes, including testing people in their usual places where they reported the problems (using portable equipment), taking into account the history of their complaints, i.e. using equipment that was as close as possible to the sources the subjects claimed to be sensitive to, [counterbalancing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeated_measures_design#Counterbalancing) for time of day and time on task etc.


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