It's a higher quality article than half the submissions to NeuroIPS and the rest of the AI/ML conferences, because it has potential to remain relevant next year, and because of its high didactic content. I wouldn't classify it as a "hot take".

In that respect I would more readily believe that maybe the loudness of the call is causing my inner ear some pain. But it really does not feel like that.

I am trying to understand why I only get irritated by phone calls and (possibly) microwave ovens, when we are constantly swimming in microwave level radiation. Do phone calls use more energy or something? Can it be related to the transmitted energy? I know most microwaves I used are old so I would not be surprised that they leak a bit from their shielding.

Radio signal strength follows the inverse-square law with distance, so although a (cellular) phone uses relatively little power compared to other types of radio, your head would absorb more radiation in total with the phone so close.

Layman's idea of mine: if you want to test specifically for microwave radiation, you could locate a cellular phone station (they are easy to find with various online maps, and are usually located on the roofs of buildings or lamp posts) and stand by it. I think that should be a considerably higher amount of radiation at any distance less than a few metres or so compared to holding your phone to your ear. The station will be transmitting constantly in any built-up area because cellular phones communicate with the station periodically even when there are no calls taking place.

I would try taking calls standing up with earbuds and see if that fixes it before I jumped to ideas about microwaves. Or speaker phone would be even better if your environment allows it.

As I said, I don't believe in the whole brain cancer thing, because if there was merit to it, there should be more conclusive evidence by now. The symptoms would also not be so abrupt. If this is something it must be the heating of my brain/ear/head tissue irritating me somehow. I almost never used the speaker phone, but I will experiment with that.

All older phone manuals used to have warning about radiation, I believe, but this was just a precaution.

It is also worth mentioning that I get irritated and nauseous very easily. Being too long in the sun causes my ears to ache, for example, also giving me head aches.