Picture this: a man in a restaurant, fully immersed in a virtual reality game, accidentally whacks his 6-year-old son with his controller. The poor kid ends up in the hospital with a nasty cut on his eyebrow. Meanwhile, a 21-year-old gets an unexpected headache on a flight when a laptop from the overhead bin decides to make a crash landing on his head. And let’s not even talk about the 39-year-old who thought a screwdriver was the best tool to extract a rubber earbud tip from his ear. Oh, and hoverboards? Apparently, they have a secret mission to make people fall more often than not.
Gadgets and toys can inject excitement into our daily grind, yet they come with a side of potential hazards. In fact, thousands of such incidents require a trip to the emergency room annually. To shed light on the safety risks of the devices we love to review, Gizmodo took a deep dive into 2023’s tech-related injuries using data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). This database keeps tabs on ER visits at a selection of hospitals, connecting the dots between injuries and various consumer products.
We scoped out ER visit data focused on injuries tied to several crowd-favorite consumer tech gadgets: smartphones, drones, headsets, headphones, hoverboards, tablets, vibrators, video games, and virtual reality gear. While NEISS estimates nationwide hospitalizations from consumer products, our peek into these specific tech categories offers a more anecdotal but telling snapshot of how these beloved gadgets can lead to unexpected pain.
Turning our attention to video games, there’s an interesting split in the injury game. On one hand, players of standard video games occasionally end up punching inanimate objects out of frustration. On the other hand, VR gamers often take a swing at unintended human targets. According to NEISS, VR gamers have accidentally delivered punches to their moms, kids, and, as one 12-year-old found out the hard way, even themselves, with more than 64% of VR-related ER trips due to accidental fisticuffs.
In contrast, traditional game players who rage-quit accounted for a mere 5% of the injuries, usually picking problematic targets like windows or glass furniture to punch. A significant portion, 25%, of non-VR video game injuries stemmed from seizures or fainting, while 13% involved repetitive strain injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome and neck issues, thanks to marathon gaming sessions. Interestingly, these conditions were absent in VR play mishaps, which were all about unintended impacts, falls, or headset-induced sores.
Hoverboards, with their trend of causing calamities, led the pack in generating ER visits. People collided with all kinds of household items, falling hard and often, particularly on wrists and heads (seriously, a helmet wouldn’t go amiss while riding one). The silver lining? No reports of spontaneous hoverboard combustion in 2023.
Drones, on the other hand, surprisingly had the fewest ER visits in our data—though a mere 9 incidents seem a tad suspicious.
When it comes to headphones, over-ear fanatics have another reason to bask in superiority. Earbuds, it seems, have a knack for getting stuck, with over 70% of headphone ER visits involving earbud tips wedged in ears. The lesson? Maybe avoid napping with earbuds in, and definitely don’t resort to unconventional tools for extraction.
Control those vibrations—it’s true, vibrators do occasionally get lodged in places they shouldn’t, but thankfully not as frequently as earbud tips.
For cell phones, the biggest danger lies in dropping them. The database shows that over 13% of phone-related ER visits involved users dropping phones on faces, feet, or hapless children. Another 12% of injuries were due to distracted strollers taking tumbles, while the temptation to swipe broken screens led to 7% of ER visits. Falling out of bed or chairs while reaching for phones was guilty of another 5%. Blame is partially on manufacturers too—some devices caused shocks or bursts, resulting in burns.
In a freak twist, one woman survived a lightning strike through her phone during a storm, leaving her a bit tingly but remarkably unscathed.
When choosing between laptops and tablets for your next purchase, consider this: tablets are responsible for 36% fewer ER visits than laptops. Laptop heft accounts for many injuries, with a third due to falling on heads or feet. Their added bulk also makes traveling with them trickier, as seen with 5% of injuries originating from laptops dropping from overhead storage. But don’t be fooled by a tablet’s lighter weight; it just makes them perfect ammo for sibling feuds.
In the end, while these gadgets bring us immense joy, it’s crucial to be aware of their potential pitfalls. Stay safe and enjoy the tech without finding yourself in the ER.
