Various Injuries Caused by Everyday Gadgets in the Previous Year
In the bizarre world of modern technology, gadgets and gizmos can bring joy, but they've also taken a rough toll on people. From a dad spoiling his dinner at a restaurant with a well-timed VR headset swing to a traveler getting a rude welcome from a falling laptop, it's clear that some tech can pack a punch.
Our investigation delved into the potential pitfalls of popular consumer gadgets, especially those we frequently rely on, by analyzing tech-related injuries that resulted in emergency visits in 2023 using data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS).
We focused on ER visits involving various prevalent consumer technologies: cell phones, drones, headsets, headphones, hoverboards, tablets, vibrators, video games, and virtual reality headsets. Although NEISS uses its collected data to estimate the number of hospitalizations caused by consumer products nationwide, our analysis offers a more anecdotal and nuanced picture of the ways technology can hurt us.
Video Game Fisticuffs
Our not-quite-scientific analysis reveals an interesting discrepancy between players of traditional video games and virtual reality enthusiasts. While average gamers intentionally pummel inanimate objects in a fit of anger, virtual reality gamers seem to unwittingly use others as punching bags.
According to the NEISS data, virtual reality gamers have inadvertently landed punches on their mothers, children, and even themselves, you know, in the 'naughty spot.' A whopping 64 percent of VR-related ER visits were due to unintentional punching.
On the other hand, traditional video game players accounted for a paltry 5 percent of injuries resulting from wrathful punching, usually targeting more sensible objects like windows, mirrors, or glass tables.
Interestingly, a quarter of non-VR video game-related ER visits were attributed to seizures or loss of consciousness, while 13 percent involved ailments such as carpal tunnel, neck pain, and vision problems caused by long gaming sessions and repetitive motions. Strangely enough, these severe conditions were absent from the VR-specific ER visits, which were primarily caused by players hitting things, bumping into things, taking painful tumbles, or developing headset-induced sores.
One-Wheeled Nightmares vs. Flying Drones
Hoverboards topped the list of offending devices in the NEISS database, accounting for more ER visits than any other device we examined. Users were tripping, tumbling, and falling into every piece of furniture imaginable. Unfortunately, we couldn't unearth any instances of hoverboards spontaneously combusting in the 2023 data.
On the other hand, drones accounted for the fewest number of ER visits, with a mere nine incidents documented in our data.
Speakers and Ears: A Love Story Gone Wrong
Over-ear headphone enthusiasts may have one more reason to feel smug about their audiophilia, as they appear significantly less likely to be injured by their devices than earbud wearers. Over 70 percent of headphone-related ER visits were due to earbud tips becoming lodged in ears, often during sleep or when meddling with stuck earbuds. And remember, it's generally not wise to sleep with earbuds in or to hunt for a stuck earbud tip using foreign objects.
While having a cord attached to an earbud makes extraction a bit easier, it also introduces new hazards. One unfortunate 44-year-old patient burned her hands after her headphones snagged an object while she was carrying a pot of boiling water.
Freaky Fr positioned Objects
It's no secret that sexual aids like vibrators can wind up in places they're definitely not meant to be. However, the NEISS data suggests that such occurrences are less common than earbud tips getting stuck in body parts.
Drop Zone: Cell Phones
The most dangerous cell phone activity would seem to be the simplest: not holding the phone properly. Over 13 percent of cell phone-related ER visits in the database for 2023 were due to users dropping their phones onto their own faces, toes, or children.
Around 12 percent of injuries were the result of distracted users falling off bicycles, tripping over potholes, or in one instance, walking into a metal 9/11 memorial plaque while engrossed in their phone rather than watching where they were going. And let's all agree that scrolling through the latest doomscroll while descending a flight of stairs is a recipe for disaster.
Swiping broken screens accounted for 7 percent of phone ER visits, and falling out of bed or a chair while reaching for a phone caused 5 percent of visits.
Phone manufacturers share some responsibility for the mishaps, as 5 percent of cell phone-related ER trips were the result of devices electrically shocking their owners or spontaneously combusting and burning them. One incident involved a woman being struck by a flash of blue lightning while holding her phone during a thunderstorm, leaving her with a tingly body but thankfully unburned.
Portable Pain: Laptops vs. Tablets
If you're in the market for a new personal computer, you might want to consider tablets, given that they caused 36 percent fewer ER visits than laptops in the 2023 NEISS data. The larger size and weight of laptops seem to account for much of this disparity, leading to a higher incidence of head and foot injuries caused by laptops falling during use or while transporting them.
However, smaller items like tablets and cell phones can still prove dangerous, with plenty of examples of siblings inexplicably hurling them at one another.
- In the future, the risks of using technology devices might not be as apparent as the joy they bring, with data showing that virtual reality headsets have resulted in a significant number of unintentional injuries, particularly lacerations in the 'naughty spot'.
- Surprisingly, conventional video game players are less likely to cause themselves harm compared to virtual reality gamers, with seizures and loss of consciousness being more common among non-VR gamers.
- Hoverboards, often hailed as a symbol of tech advancement, lead the list of offending devices, causing numerous accidents due to users tripping or falling, although there were no recorded instances of spontaneous combustion in the 2023 data.
- Over-ear headphone enthusiasts appear to be safer from device-related injuries compared to earbud wearers, with earbud tips becoming lodged in ears accounting for over 70 percent of headphone-related ER visits.
