An exploding e-cigarette, a fall from an electric scooter, a virtual reality video game that ends in a broken hand… Our new technologies have brought us many good things, but also a mountain of new potential injuries. Some even send their owners straight to the emergency room.
Online media outlet Gizmodo looked at technology-related accidents in 2023 based on data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), set up by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent agency of the US government that specializes in consumer product safety in the United States and therefore more specifically in monitoring injuries related to electronic devices. The site tracked emergency room visits in a representative sample of American hospitals, in order to determine which everyday objects are most likely to injure us.
Unsurprisingly, hoverboards, these handlebarless self-balancing scooters, top the list, followed by smartphones, video games, headsets, laptops and virtual reality (VR) systems. Hoverboards are indeed the big winners on this disastrous list, having caused more hospitalizations than any other tech device monitored by the NEISS. Falls, collisions: everything is involved and every part of the body is likely to suffer because of these hellish machines, although the wrists and head are the most affected.
On the video game side, the data provided by the NEISS mentions, for example, the case of players equipped with virtual reality headsets unintentionally hitting their loved ones – or hitting themselves, as was the case for an unfortunate 12-year-old boy sent to hospital after unintentionally hitting his penis. More than 64% of injuries …
- Slate.fr
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