BLAW 200 Week 13 Initial Post PDF

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Choose any product. The more dangerous, the better. How do we know that that product is safe?

I decided to choose cell phones as my product. I wonʻ t be choosing a specific brand, just a cell phone in general. The first thing that came to my mind when thinking about product safety with cell phones was when the (I believe) Samsung Note 7 was exploding and causing fires (even though I said I wonʻ t be choosing a specific brand, weʻ ll take a look at this). There was also a somewhat recent incident where a cell phone blew up at a gas station, but this might have to do with something else (as explained later). Product safety with an everyday item like a cell phone is a very serious issue as we tend to keep these phones always on us/ with us which puts us at risk for any potential damages. Even if itʻ s hard to believe that such damage can be caused by such a small device. Samsung caught a lot of trouble with their whole phone explosion and catching on fire situation. So the issue here was something that seems so simple but so dangerous as the batteries not fitting right. Little side note here, as a kid I would take those tiny AA or AAA batteries and use a paperclip and attach it to both the positive and negative side and attempt to re-charge it. I would feel the paperclip after a bit and notice it was hot, sometimes very hot. I also remember my father not only letting me do it, (which I somewhat wish he didnʻ t as I now realize how dangerous it was) but also telling me to be careful where I do it (for example not do it near any paper as if a flame where to start the flame would grow and weʻ d have a situation on our hands). So, imagine this long side story of mine, but the battery be a phone battery that is bigger and holds a bigger charge (Iʻ m not a battery expert but I feel like a phone battery would have more fire power...no pun intended...than a regular AA or AAA battery). Back to the phone issue, the batteries were not sized correctly (size matters...sorry I couldnʻ t help it, but seriously, turns out it does) and this resulted in the overheating and that lead to fires and due to the pressure, explosions. Now that we know why and how this particular issue has happened, we know that products need to be constantly tested and sizes need to be precise especially when lives are at risk. Letʻ s move onto the gas station issue. As far as the gas station explosion goes, cell phones are actually not the cause of explosions. Instead it is the static electricity charge by the person themselves that can ignite the fuel they are putting into their car. The MythBusters have proven this and you can check out the short 2 minute video as it can help save you from potential disaster. Another website supports this “busted” myth as the video of the gas station explosion by cell phone a “mislabel”. The real story is quite different to what was said and what has been possibly scaring us all. According to snopes.com, the real story was that the driver was filling his tank with compressed natural gas and because of the pressure the explosion had occurred. There was also no children in the car using their phones, but there was a adult female passenger. So, it is safe to say that the rumor about cell phones causing explosions at gas stations is a myth thanks to two reliable resources. However, we still should be careful with our phones.

So my post is already long enough, but there are what I would call “long-term” effects that I would like to cover, but I will save you from further agony of reading this post if you in fact are. These long-term effects ʻI m talking about would be radiation from the phone itself. Thatʻs it! I wonʻ t say more even though Iʻ d like to. P.S. you can check out how Apple is making phones safer not only for consumers, but for the environment as well here: https://www.apple.com/environment/safer-materials/

Sources:

Cell Phone Gas Station MiniMyth - MythBusters | Discovery. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/cell-phone-gas-station-minimyth

MacGuill, D. (n.d.). FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show a Car Exploding at a Gas Station Due to Cellphone Use? Retrieved from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cell-phoneexplosion-gas-station/

Report, P. S. (2017, January 20). Samsung finally figures out why its phones kept exploding. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2017/01/20/samsung-finally-figures-out-why-itsphones-kept-exploding/...