After the lecture on the April Fool's day, I have once again realized that becoming a critical thinker is definitely not an easy thing. The fan death article, I totally have accepted all the information written on it without any hesitation. I regret about it and now I decided to find more about it.
The arguments on this issue clearly divided into two. Those who believed that fans can actually kill, and the other who argued that they don't.
Those who believe fan deaths argue that if a fan is blowing in a sealed room then it may cause the body temperature to cool down, eventually causing hypothermia. This hypothermia even leads a person to death. Their second assertion would be suffocation. The argument is that the blowing fan creates a vacuum around one's face area, which prevents him or her from breathing, leading to death. Actually, the strongest arguments may be the anecdotes of some people who have experienced a "near-death" when they have forgotten to turn their fans off while they were asleep.
However, there never was an objective scientific study that proved fans can create such deaths. It is so widely believed among Koreans, but no one exactly knows how really a fan kills a person.
In fact, a research was conducted in Korea back in 2007 which led by KBS(Korea Broadcasting Service). According to this controlled research the doctors proved that fans did not cause suffocation, nor hypothermia. On the other hand, there were some experts saying that the fans may work negatively to people who are already suffering from obesity or respiratory diseases.
To sum up my short research, the fan death may not be a direct cause of a death, but may be an indirect cause. This means that when a person is already suffering from chronic diseases, he or she may be more susceptible to change in body condition by a fan.
I think more researches must be conducted on this issue controlling various circumstances that may affect the result of the research.
** For your information, refer to the research done by KBS. Sorry that this is only provided in Korean.
** This is an interesting article on Fan Death from Snopes.com, an urban legend reference site.
Interesting^^, I remember that day when I felt like a fool realizing everything in the article was false. Even though the article was April fools' day joke, I think we learned a lot from the class. First, our blind faith on writings that are written in an article form, second, our belief on the name of institutions, and how easily we fall for others' opinion written in statements. Also, how writings on internet can be so misled. It was a valuble lesson for me. I think fan death is only a myth, and the fan death of people with respiratory problem is only a coincidence, not a direct cause.
ReplyDeleteI was so shocked too, at the fact that I took the inforation on the false article without any suspition!I thought I can avoid such mistakes by being aware, but I fell for it so easily Xb Becoming a critical thinker really needs practice and effort.
ReplyDeleteAbout fan deaths, I also thought that it DOES take place and it was due to 'suffocation'. But by reading your article and the research that you've linked above, now I know there is no such thing...How foolish I was, living all these years believing fake myth? (But then, why have I felt suffocation when I forgot to turn off the electronic fan and fell asleep? I don't have any health problems. Is the suffocation due to the hot air? -_-;)
Sorry; I never intended to make anyone feel foolish. Well, maybe just a little... but please don't lose sleep over it. :)
ReplyDeleteFor more April Fools style madness, take a look at this site.