Today’s WTF moment
I found the following story on the yahoo headlines:
SAN FRANCISCO – A Louisiana man claims in a lawsuit that Apple’s iPod music player can cause hearing loss in people who use it.
Apple has sold more than 42 million of the devices since they went on sale in 2001, including 14 million in the fourth quarter last year. The devices can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the sound for more than 28 seconds per day, according to the complaint.
The iPod players are “inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss,” according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana.
The suit, which Patterson wants certified as a class-action, seeks compensation for unspecified damages and upgrades that will make iPods safer. Patterson’s suit said he bought an iPod last year, but does not specify whether he suffered hearing loss from the device.
Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that’s beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.
“He’s bought a product which is not safe to use as currently sold on the market,” Berman said. “He’s paying for a product that’s defective, and the law is pretty clear that if someone sold you a defective product they have a duty to repair it.”…………
So now we can’t even take responsibility and use our brains to decide when the music playing in our ears might be too loud? What the heck?
It’s so funny you posted on this. I actually brought this up with my students today – the damage, not the lawsuit. They said, “Well, if it can hurt you, why can they sell it?” I brought up the fact that cigarettes and tobacco constitute a multi-billion dollar industry, and they very clearly hurt you. Big Macs hurt you, and people still buy them. People have to be responsible for what they consume. Nobody forced that man to buy an IPod and turn it all the way up. I feel the same about those kids who drive around bassing. I actually had to cover my ears the other day because the car next to me was bassing so loud it literally hurt my ears. I almost cried. And I had my fingers plugging everything up so I wouldn’t hear as much!
I was reading a magazine today (Self, maybe? Shape?) and there was an article about “direct listening devices” and how you could damage your ears. I don’t think people realize the damage they are doing…thinks it is an urban myth or something. Still, they are the one ultimately responsible for their actions.