C

    Velma Lyrae spends up to 18 hours a day limited to a cage because she is allergic(对…过敏) to modern technology. The 51-year-old can’t use a mobile phone, music player, or WIFI. She can’t even use a hairdryer to dry her hair. Instead, she spends her days reading books, doing artwork, and writing letters, all from the comfort of her Faraday cage.

    She suffers from an increasingly common condition called electromagnetic(电磁的) hypersensitivity syndrome(EHS), which means she cannot stand to be near electromagnetic fields. Velma’s condition happened with the arrival of 3G mobile phones, although having an electric shock before is believed to make people more likely to have the disease.

    As a teenager, Velma suffered a shock when she touched the switch during an electric fire in her bathroom. At first, the symptoms were hardly noticeable, but they have gradually become worse over time.

    Velma worked as a secretary for a number of companies in the 1980s, but was forced to leave her job. She said, “Even back then, I could feel a huge agitation when using the computer, but I thought it was just because I didn’t have the technological skills. Now I know that I was starting to feel anxious because of the symptoms of my EHS.”

Dr. Erica Mallery-Blythe said, “The symptoms of EHS can cover a broad range of systems, often start subtly(微妙的), and can be mistaken for other medical conditions. Adults and children today are exposed to very high levels of electromagnetic fields that no life on the planet has ever witnessed before. It is no surprise that the number of those with EHS is rising. One of the tragedies is that people use these approaches－cages , shades, necklaces－to try to protect themselves, but those are not long-term solutions. They are simply survival means. The long-term solution is building the internal adaptive(适应) ability that enables those with EHS to be like the rest of us.”