A humankind wearing a virtual world headset at a restaurant smacks his 6 - year - old boy with the controller , sending him to the infirmary with an eyebrow laceration . A 21 - twelvemonth - old sitting on a plane is clonked on the principal by a laptop falling from an overhead compartment . A 39 - year - old gets the safety tip of an earbud stuck in his pinna and unsuccessfully tries to remove it with a screwdriver . And many , many masses settle off hoverboards .
While convenience and doodad can bring in joy into our life , they also result in thousands of serious injury each year . To decide the base hit implication of the devices we frequentlyreview , Gizmodo analyzed tech - related injuries that run to ER visits in 2023 using data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission ’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System ( NEISS ) . The database tracks ER visits at a representative sample distribution of hospitals and documents their links to a wide range of consumer Cartesian product .
We examined ER sojourn from the database in which patients assign their injuries to several democratic consumer technologies : mobile phone phones , poke , headsets , headphones , hoverboards , pill , vibrator , video games , and virtual reality headset . While NEISS uses its sampled data to calculate national estimates for the phone number of hospitalizations have by consumer product , our psychoanalysis of more specific product category proffer a less authoritative and more anecdotal picture of how our favorite technologies hurt us .
© Martin Poole
Video game
Gizmodo ’s not - entirely - scientific depth psychology shows that masses who represent normalvideo gamespunch inanimate object on aim while hoi polloi who playvirtual realityvideo games punch people by accident .
The NEISS datum documents VR gamers unintentionally punching their mother , their children , and in the case of one doomed 12 - twelvemonth - previous boy , punching himself in the penis . More than 64 percent of VR - touch on emergency brake room sojourn were the answer of unintentional punching .
By contrast , rage - quitting wild punchers accounted for 5 percent of injuries require video game that were n’t explicitly labeled VR . They stood out for their poor choices of things to perforate , such as windows , mirrors , and glass tables .
A one-fourth of ER sojourn involving non - VR picture game were the termination of seizures or loss of awareness , while 13 percent involved complaint like carpal burrow , neck pain in the ass , and imaginativeness problem that patient assign to foresighted gambling sessions and repetitive gesture . Interestingly , those serious atmospheric condition were completely lacking from the VR - specific ER visit , which were all attributed to players hitting things , turn tail into thing , fall over , or developing sores from bear headsets .
Hoverboards vs. drones
Hoverboardsaccounted for more erbium visit in the NEISS sample than any other gimmick we try . the great unwashed ran into every piece of furniture imaginable and come onto every part of the body it ’s potential to fall onto , especially wrists and heads ( please wear a helmet when linger ) . The good intelligence is the 2023 data did n’t contain any examples of hoverboardsspontaneously combusting .
Surprisingly , drones accounted for the fewest identification number of ER visits in our data — a suspiciously small 9 incident .
phone
As if over - earheadphonelovers needed another reason to feel self-satisfied about their audiophilia , they look significantly less likely to be injure by their devices than earbud wearers . More than 70 pct of ER visit linked to earpiece were a result of plastic and rubber earbud tip becoming lodge in patients ’ ear . The data suggests it ’s unwise to lessen asleep in earbuds or to shove other object in your ear to get a stuck earbud tip out .
While have a electric cord bind to an earbud may make it easy to extract , it also show its own peril . One 44 - year - old patient role scald her hands after her earphone snagged an object while she was carry a pot of boiling water .
Vibrators
It ’s no secret , citizenry getvibratorsstuck in their bodies . But not as often as they get earbud tips stuck in their body , according to the NEISS data sample .
cellular telephone phone
The most dangerouscell sound - related activity seems to be holding one — and then not holding it . More than 13 percent of cell phone - related ER visits in the database for 2023 were the result of users dropping their telephone on their own face , toes , or children
About 12 percent of combat injury were the result of distracted users fall down off bikes , stepping into potholes , and in one case walking into a metal 9/11 memorial plaque while looking at their earpiece or else of watching where they were going . It should go without say that it is particularly life-threatening to doomscroll while take the air down a flight of steps .
Swiping broken screen accounted for 7 percentage of phone ER visit and fall out of bed or a chairman while attain for a phone ( who has n’t been there ? ) get 5 percent of visit .
Phone manufacturers bear some province : Another 5 per centum of phone - interrelate ER trip were the result of devices electrically shock their owners or spontaneously blow one’s stack and burning them .
And one combat injury appears to have been an enactment of god . A 48 - year - old fair sex was sitting on the floor of her household holding her cadre speech sound during a thunderstorm when a flash of blue lightning hit the headphone and blasted it out of her paw , leave her whole body tingly but luckily unburned .
laptop computer vs. tablet
When snitch for your next personal computer , one factor you may want to weigh is thattabletscaused 36 percent fewer ER visits thanlaptops , according to the 2023 NEISS data . The comparative heft of laptop computer seems to describe for much of this . More than 34 percent of laptop injuries were the final result of calculator fall on someone ’s forefront or feet , double the butterfingers - to - ER visit pace make by lozenge . Their large size also realise laptops less convenient and more dangerous to travel with . Five percentage of laptop computer injuries were because of laptops falling out of overhead storage compartment on planes or buses .
But light thing are n’t always safer . They become sluttish to give . The NEISS information involving tablets and jail cell phones is prevailing with object lesson of sib “ circumstantially ” chucking the twist at each other .
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