Are iPods Bad for your Health?

In New York apparently iPods and other personal music devices are considered so dangerous to use while on the streets that the state is considering banning them from use while on the road. As far as I know this only applies to those people who walk and cross the streets while wearing their iPod earbuds in an attempt to stay musically entertained while making the long trek to work or school every morning. This push for passage of the law comes on the heels of the news out of Vancouver, British Columbia where a 23-year-old student was killed by a crashing helicopter.

Now I'm sure many of you are a bit confused about what one thing has to do with the other so let me explain a bit. Apparently what happened with the Canadian student was that he walked out of his house one day to go check the mail. He was wearing a pullover sweatshirt that had built in spaces for his earbud headphones; and so as he walked to the mailbox with his hood pulled over his head and his earbuds in place, he failed to see his friend waving at him frantically over the helicopter heading his way. Investigators believe that the student had his iPod volume turned up so high that he had essentially blocked out any and all other sensory information from being processed and was subsequently struck and dragged by the helicopter as it hit the ground.

In other similar instances, people in New York have been hit by cars and buses while attempting to cross the street because they are so in tune with their latest iTune acquisitions that they aren't paying much attention to how they walk. There have been a rising number of incidents of late where pedestrians are being struck and the culprit is usually being identified as the over-loud iPod. Scientists and audiologists have stated that the average street sounds are in the 60 decibel range; the average plane flying overhead is in the 120 to 130 decibel range. If you are listening to your iPod SO loudly that you can't even hear planes flying overhead then they assume that you're doing some potentially permanent damage to your ears. They say that if you hear a constant ringing in your hearing then it's likely that you're already suffering some of the effects.

But it isn't dangerous just listening to your iPod; even carrying one is becoming a bit dangerous. Most people know about all the problems associated with carrying an iPod. In essence it has become a popular target for muggers on the subways or dark alleyways. It isn't high enough a crime to be a significant statistic but it has helped develop a new industry whereby iPod cases are being made to resemble old style Walkmen and Discmen (and if you don't know what those are then you truly are too young to understand most of the things I talk about on this blog). In another freak and random event recently, a young man was being called out by police for suspicious activity and because of his iPod being on, he couldn't hear the police. Upon finally seeing them, he reached into his pocket to shut it off and the thin sliver of his iPod was enough for police to assume he was carrying a gun and so the individual was shot.

It's sad but true that doing something as simple as listening to music is becoming so dangerous a thing. I know that for me, music is an essential part of my life. I have always had some music or the other going on in the background and it has always helped me pass the time or set the mood. As Dick Clark once famously quipped, music is the soundtrack of our lives and though I don't always use rock music as my soundtrack, I know exactly what he meant. While it's sad that these incidents with the iPod and other musical devices has resulted in injuries and in some cases, death, but it isn't fair to lay all the blame at the feet of the devices. It is our responsibility as the user to use it in a proper manner. By banning them or keeping the volume down too low, the escape that many people seek from such devices will never come to pass.