negative ions

[maximus]

my mother recently bought a negative ion producing machine, claiming that negative ions have the ability to make her feel happier. is there any way i can scientifically debunk this claim? links would be good.

[FZ+]

Ask her to sit closer to the TV. The electron gun in the TV provides far more "happy" negative charged particles and at a much lower cost than any specialist machine. (Hmm... maybe that's why TV = happiness?)

Ok, seriously, don't do the above. The radiation from the TV may in fact be bad for the health. As for the ioniser, I don't think there is much evidence. The best I can think of it is that charged dust particles in the air may clump and settle down more, making the air somewhat cleaner. Still sounds like waste of money to me.

Hey, most of the happiness comes from the placebo effect. Because she thinks she will feel happy, she does feel happy. Perhaps in this case it is not really neccessary to break this by debunking it, and you can't exactly take it back, can you? Up to you though.

[maximus]

Originally posted by FZ+
Perhaps in this case it is not really neccessary to break this by debunking it, and you can't exactly take it back, can you? Up to you though.

actually she encourages me to. (and there's a 60 day return limit, so she's safe there)

[megashawn]

Uhm, I know (or think I know) what your talking about. I've always seen them advertised as low power consuming air filter device things. The purpose of it is to do as FZ said, but some actually use hepa filter looking things to catch the dust and pollen and such.

I imagine that if you lived in a dusty or high pollen count enviroment, such a device could provide some happiness, so long as it truly cleans the air.

But I don't think the negative ions have anything to do with triggering happines. If this were the case, it seems the whole world would be incredibly happy. If nothing else, I would point out to her that negative ions are all over the place, tv, probably natural occurances or big power stations, and that the world, for the most part, is miserable.

[Alex]

actually, most of what iv read has said that the negative ion producing machine things dont do jack ****. It apparently was a huge fad in japan. It might clean the air out a bit, but it wont do anything other than that. WASTE OF MONEY!

BTW tell your mom to stop watching late-night/early-morning infomercials :).

[plus]

Originally posted by FZ+
The radiation from the TV may in fact be bad for the health.

If this was true, there would be a whole fad about 'ion friendly' tvs.

[I, Brian]

Having a house where the air is cleaned of dust and pollen would certainly make me happier - especially now hayfever season is kicking in. :)

[FZ+]

Originally posted by plus
If this was true, there would be a whole fad about 'ion friendly' tvs.
I think they did have them once, with layers of shielding around tvs, back projector screens etc etc...