🎧 Do you remember the iPod scare? Hearing loss, death, and robberies

I recently read Steven Levy's book on the iPod, The Perfect Thing. It was published in 2006, making it an interesting time capsule. It was written at the peak of the iPod hype but before the iPhone and Spotify arrived.

Of course, it tells the story of the amazing gadget that saved Apple, made Steve Jobs a returning hero, and turned the music industry upside down. "A thousand songs in your pocket" was brilliant marketing and a small revolution.

But the book also covered the iPod scare: all the pessimistic predictions painted by pundits in the wake of that little music player. We quickly forget such things, but at the time they seemed so real, so dangerous, so worrying.

I checked up on what became of these pessimistic prophecies.

Hearing loss

Critics claimed the iconic white earbuds could pump out dangerous decibel levels, causing an entire generation to lose their hearing by age 30. Newspapers told horror stories of ringing ears and permanent hearing loss.

An extensive analysis of American teens’ hearing (NHANES 1988–2010) found no long-term increase in hearing impairment, despite substantial growth in headphone usage during this period. A major Norwegian study (HUNT, 1998–2018) found no general decline in hearing linked to personal music players. Only those reporting very high listening volumes showed slightly worse hearing (on average about 1–2 dB worse hearing thresholds), while moderate use appeared harmless.

Robberies

In the mid-2000s, a rise in robberies in the U.S. and some other countries was observed, and some attributed it to the explosive popularity of iPods. The term "iCrime wave" was coined to suggest that more iPods led to more theft. The researchers behind the iCrime study emphasized that the correlation between iPod sales and crime increases was not proof of causation (which didn’t stop the media from making that connection).

After a brief rise in 2005 and 2006, the long-term trend of declining robberies and violent crime continued in the U.S. Criminologists and analysts pointed to other contemporary factors as more likely explanations for the crime increase. For instance, increased violent crime around 2006 was attributed to gang activity, gun use, drug markets, and reduced police presence in certain areas.

Death

Listening to music was supposed to cause more traffic accidents. Here, conclusions are less clear. Official statistics on traffic accidents in the U.S. showed no significant increase in distraction-related crashes at the end of the 2000s or early 2010s (when smartphones became widespread). In 2015, 442 fatal crashes were linked to mobile phone distractions, slightly up from 366 in 2010. But in these cases, the culprit was rarely listening to music—it was texting or web surfing.

However, there was some evidence that pedestrians were more frequently hit. In 2004/2005, there were 16 cases where pedestrians wearing headphones were struck by vehicles. This rose to 47 cases by 2010/2011.

iPod finger

In 2005, British newspapers featured chiropractors warning that excessive clicking on the iPod’s scroll wheel could cause pains similar to "SMS thumb." “iPod finger” was painted as a new technological health issue.

Yet, there were never any actual injury reports linked to the iPod’s click wheel. Unsurprisingly, the term faded away when touchscreens took over (after which we heard new claims about "iPhone thumb," etc.).

Same old story

The iPod scare turned out to be the same old story we've repeated many times before—imaginative problems sometimes completely made up, sometimes rooted in reality but vastly exaggerated. Yes, if you always listen to very loud music without paying attention to traffic, you might get hurt. But just because a few people behave recklessly doesn’t mean we have a societal crisis.

My issue isn’t with paying attention to potential risks but with how we draw extreme conclusions and paint them as major threats. And when most of these threats fail to materialize or are far smaller than anticipated, we swiftly move on and repeat the same mistakes with the next new gadget or technology.

This makes us dumber, more fearful, and unnecessarily cautious.

Mathias Sundin
Angry Optimist