Members of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens will not be the only ones risking injury Sunday 2/3/13. Mobile devices will also be facing various forms of peril, including drops, plunges, spills and emotional outbursts.
In case you’re laughing this off, SquareTrade reports that some 23M have damaged a mobile device while watching a sporting event.
It can even report that the devices of Ravens fans are more likely meet with tragedy than those of 49ers fans. 27% of Ravens fans have had an incident in the past year compared to only 23% of 49ers fans.
From SquareTrade, here are the top five causes of cell phone mayhem:
1) The standard drop: device dropped from hand – 33%
2) Liquid drops — most common of which are toilet drops, sweat and water spills – 18%
3) Beer drops – devices dropped in beer –13% – it’s more common than you would think!
4) Passion drops: devices thrown in anger or excitement — 12%
5) Bar drop: devices falling from a bar or table — 8%
“Given the tweeting, texting and photographing in arenas, stadiums, living rooms and local sports bars across the nation, we weren’t surprised to learn that one in ten Americans has damaged their phone during a game,” commented Ty Shay , SquareTrade’s Chief Marketing Officer. “But the prevalence of Passion and Beer Drops caught us by surprise, and speaks volumes about the passion Americans have for football and other sports.”
SquareTrade even offers defensive strategies to protect the devices:
1) Keep your phone at hand but not in hand – like the precious TV remote find a place that is close to the couch and easy to find
2) Count to ten after all suspect calls or player mistakes
3) Never use or take your device to the bathroom
4) Consider using hands-free beer hat dispensers
5) Protect your phone and promote your team with football phone covers
RBR-TVBR observation: Progress comes with a price. This reporter personally misses the days when all you had to do was get beyond the reach of the telephone cord to leave the outside world behind and enjoy some peace and privacy – not to mention being able to walk around in public without hearing half of the conversation of total strangers.
The awesome intrusiveness of cellular technology was demonstrated the time we took our young children to the local park, and wandered over to a little pond. We were soon joined by another person with little kids – but this other person just had to spoil the peaceful moment in nature to get out a phone and report to somebody somewhere the she sees “some ducks.”
Please, I beg you, do not ever call me to keep me up-to-date on your duck sightings.
In this case, she wasn’t even correct. Our kids, aged about 6 and 4, took it upon themselves to inform this woman that she was in fact observing geese, not ducks.
Beyond that – the other disadvantage cellular has over landline is that in a fit of passion, it can be thrown at the TV, thus crippling two appliances at once. I’ve never seen anybody rip out a landline phone and fire it at an innocent television set.
Of course, had a cell been available it would have helped me out personally on at least one occasion. If my much larger and stronger brother had one available to throw during a football game reversal back in the 80s, perhaps he would have done so rather than grabbing me off of the couch and hurling me across the room into a door. So maybe cells and football are a good combination after all.
