Under 13s Most Likely to Suffer a Phone Related Injury

Mobile phone safety is a growing concern. A study of mobile phone related injuries found children under 13 are most likely to be hurt by their phones.

The study estimated phones were responsible for more than 76,000 head and neck injuries in a 20 year period in America alone.

Reported injuries included those related to texting whilst walking, people dropping the phone onto their face whilst using it laying down and being whacked with it in a tussle over it with a sibling.

43% of young people have walked into something whilst using their phone

Most injuries in the report related to being hurt due to being distracted by a phone, with around half of the injuries happening whilst driving.

People aged 13 – 29 accounted for 60% of injuries associated with phone user distraction.

However, children aged 12 and under were the age group most likely to sustain ‘mechanical injury from a phone’ and – alarmingly – they accounted for 82% of the recorded incidents.

Apparently 43% of young people have walked into something whilst checking their phone and 60% of us have dropped our phone onto our face whilst reading.

Phone use has led to a 800% rise in distraction injuries for pedestrians such as walking into lamp posts and stepping out into traffic, according to one recent report.

Another study found that in a six year period there had been as much increase in the number of pedestrians injured due to phone related injuries as there had in the number of drivers hurt due to phone distractions.

More male pedestrians were hurt due to phone use than women – and the numbers were highest among young people.

Man stepped on a snake whilst texting

The moment a man was bitten by a snake he stepped on whilst texting on his phone as he crossed a car park in Oklahoma, was caught on a surveillance camera.

More common as an injury, according to one recent report was phone users getting shards of glass stuck in their bottoms due to a phone shattering in a back pocket. The advice was to always ensure a phone in a back pocket was placed screen side out, though of course that does little to ensure you don’t suffer the even more common fate of the phone sliding down the toilet. Less painful maybe, but if you’re really keen on continuing to keep your phone in your pocket it would perhaps be wise to ensure it’s insured!

Injuries to fingers from broken screens are also common.

Selfie dangers

Taking selfies also leaves people at risk.

Many people fear sharks in open waters, but few get the jitters over a selfie. Yet, more people died taking a selfie than from shark attacks in 2015.

Between 2011 and 2017, 259 people were killed in the quest for extreme selfies on cliff edges or in otherwise perilous positions, a global study found.

Mobile phone safety

Many of us consider the need to ensure the safety of us and our children when scrolling the internet on our phones, due to hackers, fraudsters and predators.

As well as considering our virtual safety in terms of phone use, perhaps we need also to give a little thought to our physical safety in relation to them.