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Fan Death (mortality due to running electric fan in closed room)
(en.wikipedia.org)
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this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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I've heard and read about this kind of phobia being fairly common across a fairly massive swath of East Asia (i.e. not just Korea). Perhaps similar to various old-school / ancient beliefs that sleeping in the presence of an open window is dangerous.
One thing that does seem to be the case though is that fan motors typically generate a lot of ambient heat, so it's possible they could be counterproductive in certain cases? (small rooms and all that)
The motor wouldn’t generate enough heat to do that. It’s likely that the room temperature exceeds body temperature and the fan is just circulating hot air and people end up dehydrated and with heat stroke
To do what, exactly?
I didn't name any particular situation, such as health-problems due to heat, but as I understand it, running a fan can indeed increase the overall temperature of a room in some situations, such as closed windows / doors.
The effect might be mostly balanced-out by having the fan directly blowing upon oneself, but the ambient, closed-room temp might indeed rise. That's not a controversial concept, far as I know.
it would increase the temperature of the room way less than just having another person in there, like i think fans generally draw maybe 30 watts whereas a resting human outputs 80 watts of body heat.