Are smartphones to blame for a giant global decline in sperm counts?

Research has revealed that global sperm counts are on the decline and it is probably due to our smartphones. But how can mobile devices be ruining male fertility? Let's look at what the researchers discovered.

In 2020, a group of researchers published a very concerning overview of declining male sperm count numbers in the journal Human Reproduction Update. The research revealed that sperm totals weren’t what they were just five decades ago. 

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Global sperm counts were shown to have declined by about 50% over the course of just fifty years. The finding set off alarm bells around the world and fierce debate among experts regarding what caused the enormous slide in male potency. 

Everything from pollution, plastics, and toxins in our food has been proposed as a possible cause, according to CNN’s Sandee LaMotte. But a 2023 study from fertility experts proposed mobile phones might be behind low sperm counts. 

Published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, the new study’s authors looked at the role mobile phones play in the lives of young men between the ages of 18 and 22 years old and found something surprising about their usage. 

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"The median sperm concentration and TSC [total sperm count] were significantly higher in the group of men who did not use their phones more than once per week...compared with men using their phones >20 times per day," the study’s authors wrote.

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This means that men who used their phones more than twenty times a day were found to have a 21% increased risk of lower sperm counts. Those same men also had a 30% higher risk of having lower sperm concentrations per millimeter of semen.  

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CNN’s Sandee LaMotte reported that the study did not reveal the type of phone activity the men were engaged in on their mobile devices, so it is unclear whether calls or texts made up the majority of their mobile phone usage.  

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The study recruited 2886 men from the Swiss population who had been conscripted to the country’s military between the years 2005 and 2018. More importantly, researchers were able to get a wealth of usage details from the men.

Nearly all of the study’s participants gave a sperm sample and answered a very detailed questionnaire comprising health and lifestyle inquiries. 2764 men gave researchers details on where their mobile phone was located when not in use. 

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The study’s authors noted that 85.7% of men kept their mobile phones in their pockets when they were not in use while four percent kept them in their jackets and 9% stored their phones somewhere that wasn’t on their bodies. 

The last point was important because the researchers did not find that keeping a phone in one’s pocket was associated with lower sperm parameters, a finding that could carry larger implications for mobile phone use and sperm counts. 

The researchers also reported that they observed no association between mobile phone use and sperm motility or morphology, so it appears as if mobile phone usage may not affect the structure and function of male sperm. 

“Whilst sperm numbers matter, the ability of sperm to swim, have healthy intact DNA, and be the right shape, is at least as important,” explained Chief Scientific Officer of Care Fertility Alison Campbell in a statement to CNN about the study. 

Screenshot from YouTube @carefertility

Campbell was not involved in the new study but called the study “fascinating and novel,” though she believes it shouldn’t be a major cause for alarm nor should it change habits with male mobile phone usage. 

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“Men looking to conceive, or wanting to improve their sperm health should exercise” Cambell noted, adding they should “eat a balanced diet, maintain a healthy weight, avoid smoking and limit alcohol and seek help if they are having problems conceiving.”