Warning: iPhones and iPods Really Are Bad for Your Kids

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Warning: iPhones and iPods Really Are Bad for Your Kids

Posted 01/30/2009 at 4:25:00am | by Jan Hughes

It’s official. There are imminent dangers lurking right under our children’s noses. Turns out all those hours spent playing on gadgets are just as harmful as we suspected. Aside from the obvious dangers of obesity, isolation, wasted time, and the potential of your kids living in your basement until they’re 35, there are other threats lurking in the iPhone and iPod.

Headbang
Image Credit: Steve Rhodes

iPhones are bad for your hands

According to the American Society of Hand Therapists, typing out messages with your thumbs causes tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome, and nearly 4 million people a year get carpal from texting. As 13-year-old Reina Hardesty, lately in the news for sending 14,528 text messages in one month (that's 484 text messages a day, or about one text message every two waking minutes) can attest, that must've hurt. If your child complains about swelling, numbness, or tingling, we recommend routine bouts of thumb wrestling to strengthen and soothe.

Also noteworthy, texting while walking across the street is common enough and hazardous enough to have warranted an official warning from emergency-room doctors across the land. And, in case you’ve forgotten, so are playing on the train tracks, running with scissors, and climbing with sticks.

If all that weren’t enough to make you lock up your kid’s phone and throw away the key, there are dire warnings that texting can actually impede your child’s development... in school. Turns out the vernacular utilized by the texting throngs is now trickling into classroom assignments, and the comma and other such energy-wasting punctuation is becoming a thing of the past.

OMG. R U kidding me? Ssrsly, 4 me, this is the scariest warning of them all.

headbanging
Image Credit: SpecialK

iPods are bad for your head

According to the Archives of Internal Medicine, iPods are responsible for accelerating hearing loss in young adults. They claim that 55 million Americans over the age of 20 have some high-frequency hearing loss, which is apparently directly related to headphones, earbuds, and loud music. As hearing loss is exacerbated by length of assault on the eardrum, they recommend only 5 minutes a day on maximum volume. Obviously, the message here is, time to turn it down. You will thank us later. We promise.

On a related note, headbanging is now proven to harm your brain. The British Medical Journal has concluded that banging one’s head in conjunction with certain kinds of rock music can indeed cause mild traumatic brain injury or even concussion, as witnessed by the dazed and confused look of young concert goers exiting a metal show. We suspected as much, I’m sure. After all, shaking a little one has long been known to cause serious damage.

kids playing video games
Image Credit: Abraxas3d

Video games, on the other hand...

Parents can take heart, though. Your child is not destined to become a socially maladjusted World of Warcraft basement dweller, and you can carry on with your plans to turn their bedroom into a workout room once they’ve left for college. New studies show that video game playing does indeed aid in hand-eye coordination, boost problem-solving skills, help social development, and, best yet, make them better citizens.

So, naturally when my son came to me and wanted to download another game on our iPod touch, I did my duty as an informed mom and immediately said yes, reveling in what an upstanding citizen I was helping to create. And then, after further thought, asked him to write me a review... to mitigate any potential educational impediments and to put all these newly discovered developmental benefits to good use.

COMMENTS: 5

TAGS: Hilarious, WTF, parenting

COMMENTS

wtf
Submitted by tsimo7 on Fri, 2009-01-30 11:32

aren't u guys supposed to be endorsing apple products?

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Parents, parents, PARENTS!
Submitted by dezinewiz@mac.com on Fri, 2009-01-30 12:34

I fully believe that it is up to the parents to watch out for any danger, in any child's life - iPhone, iPod, scissors, knives, video games, etc...

To the comment about the hearing loss - if I am not mistaken, there were things like portable cassette players, portable CD players, etc.. around before the iPod?? So, Apple is clearly not to blame here.

Mr. "wtf", are you victim to this statement? -

"in school. Turns out the vernacular utilized by the texting throngs is now trickling into classroom assignments, and the comma and other such energy-wasting punctuation is becoming a thing of the past.

OMG. R U kidding me? Ssrsly, 4 me, this is the scariest warning of them all."

That is all...

I must be getting back to engineering.

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Clarification on Earbuds and Video Games
Submitted by Venti PTL on Mon, 2009-02-02 20:02

So, I walk to school everyday (15 minutes) and lunches are long (45 min) and I'm fast paced. So, as you can imagine, I have my iPod Classic in my ears a lot (I mean the earbuds, not the iPod itself). I don't have it too loud... I don't think. How loud is too loud? I can easily hear the surrounding conversations and am active in them, and can hear the bell, and the inescapable jabbering and mish-mash of words all across campus. Moby is just an amazing music genius! That's not too loud is it?And also, as the only teenage boy has NEVER had a video game system in his house (until Christmas, when we got a Wii, and my sister won't let me touch it), let me just say that World Of Warcraft, etc. can't be good for the brain. This is because while it may help brain development, it also desensitizes you too gore and violence. I stand my BFF's (the girls) and turn away when I see blood on a movie at school. It's disgusting. These people are ultimately not phased by such brutality, and that can't be good for the brain, especially when you consider Grand Theft Auto 17 or whatever current version is out. I don't keep track. But that teaches that violence is okay, and it's not. If you want to improve your child's brain, have them play 3-D Tic Tac Toe. It's hard! I can't beat my friends, but it's really fun, and my thumbs don't get sore from pressing the joystick and the A, B, C, D, X, Y, and Z buttons on the game console controller. Oh, and PS, I used to text message, but when I used the wrong version of 'there/their/they're' in a text, I stopped for next three months. I haven't had to go therapy. Well, not for the texting. It's been about 6 months now, and I'm functioning perfectly fine. But I would still love to have an iPod Touch, and would not use my thumbs!!! So, I'll be helped.

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It is shocking to know that
Submitted by Cell Phones on Wed, 2009-03-25 07:02

It is shocking to know that the iPhones and iPods can be so harmful for the kids. Indeed, it seems that the kids now days simply cannot live without these gadgets.

Cell Phones

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Its breaking news for every day..
Submitted by Philwaddington on Tue, 2009-07-21 02:20

That shocking news is not only for Kids.. Its danger to all type of persons. Listening music is good for health and brain, at the same time that is not good for Ears.. Nowadays we are killing our ears through following weapons:

1. Ears buds
2. Using Ipods with hear phone for ear
3. Using FM radio's with hear phone
4. Listening loud music and playing video games through ear phones

Please avoid these type weapons to killing our Ears..

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