Using mobile phones can have a damaging impact on young people, according to Swiss researchers.

A study by the Tropical and Public Health Institute has found that the ability to remember abstract forms, known as figural memory performance, can be reduced if the brain is often subjected to high frequency electromagnetic fields, such as holding a phone to your ear.

Researchers found evidence that radiation has a significant impact on the right half of the brain - where the figural memory is located - among adolescents who hold the phone to their right ear when making a call. There was no noticeable impact using a phone to send text messages or surf the internet.

Seven hundred teenagers from German-speaking Switzerland took part in the research over a 12-month period in the first large-scale study of its kind.

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