Should Addictive Tech Come With a Health Warning?

holy_calamity writes "Academics researching how technology addiction affects businesses and employees say 'habit-forming' gadgets like Blackberries should be dispensed along with warnings about the effect they can have on your life. 'We don't want to be in a situation in a few years similar to that with fast food or tobacco today. We need to pay attention to how people react to potentially habit-forming technologies.'"

Comments

Re:You have it all twisted

[neochubbz]

FYI, That woman was a 79 year old woman who suffered third degree burns, and was only originally suing to cover her medical costs. Keep it in perspective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_coffee_case

Re:You have it all twisted

[darkfire5252]

Sigh. I get tired of people using the McDonalds coffee lawsuit as an example. Yes, there are lots of frivolous law suits and suing these days, but this case wasn't one of them. A quick google for "mcdonalds coffee sue" turns up a page with the actual facts as the first result. From http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0122-11.htm :

• 79 year old Stella Liebeck suffered third degree burns on her groin and inner thighs while trying to add sugar to her coffee at a McDonalds drive through. Third degree burns are the most serious kind of burn.
• There were at least 700 previous cases of scalding coffee incidents at McDonalds before Liebeck's case. [Cases implying actual civil claims, not complaints]
• Lawyers found that McDonalds makes its coffee 30-50 degrees hotter than other restaurants, about 190 degrees. The Shriner Burn Institute had previously warned McDonalds not to serve coffee above 130 degrees. Doctors testified that it only takes 2-7 seconds to cause a third degree burn at 190 degrees.
• The jury came back with a decision- $160,000 for compensatory damages. But because McDonalds was guilty of "willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct" punitive damages were also applied. The jury set the award at $2.7 million, but the judge cut it in half.
• McDonald's coffee is now sold at the same temperature as most other restaurants.

So, the woman sued because she suffered severe burns. The jury awarded damages based on the damage she suffered, and then awarded punitive damages because it was clear that McDonalds knewe there was a problem, had seen the consequences of this problem and been warned before, and still did not take the relatively simple corrective measure that would prevent severe burns from their product.

Company knowingly does potentially harmful act. Act harms woman. Woman sues company. Company is penalized and corrects their behavior. Isn't that exactly how the system is supposed to work?