Athletes' Livelihood and Technology
Julio Perez
301:05
Research Paper/Draft3
Athletes’ Livelihood and Technology
Football has been America’s sport for decades and it is mainly played in the United States. Health risks have raised insecurities within the NFL and it extended to Youth Football. In “The ‘Inherent Risk’ Doctrine, Amateur Coaching Negligence, and The Goal of Loss Avoidance” by Timothy B. Fitzgerald, he talks about how sports injury, typically football, has become so common that they are becoming a social issue (890). Head injuries have run rampant in football and the league managers tried creating safer helmets to eliminate imminent risks. Even though helmets are now safer and skull fractures have not occurred in football in decades, concussions have become common injury. In Edward Tenner’s article, “Another Look, Back and a Look Ahead,” Tenner explains through the advancements in innovation we become over-confident in our technology, creating revenge effects. Better helmets made players feel safe so they become more violent players, due to the feeling of security. Football has created a surplus of injuries that have become an issue. Arguments and lawsuits have been made in order to make the game safer. That attempt to make the game safer also made it even more dangerous because players believe they are less likely to get hurt. Tenner told us that, “Adams and others (mainly social scientists) have argued conversely that seat belts, by making drivers feel more secure, actually cause more pedestrian casualties even as they reduce motorist injuries” (443). There is a system within us that needs a balance between risk and safety, the more secure we feel it increases the chance we perform reckless actions. The argument is simple, do you enhance equipment safety or decrease it. We become even more at risk with safer equipment whether it’s driving or playing a sport, because we feel secure due to the protection from the equipment. If we decrease the safety it will force us to
301:05
Research Paper/Draft3
Athletes’ Livelihood and Technology
Football has been America’s sport for decades and it is mainly played in the United States. Health risks have raised insecurities within the NFL and it extended to Youth Football. In “The ‘Inherent Risk’ Doctrine, Amateur Coaching Negligence, and The Goal of Loss Avoidance” by Timothy B. Fitzgerald, he talks about how sports injury, typically football, has become so common that they are becoming a social issue (890). Head injuries have run rampant in football and the league managers tried creating safer helmets to eliminate imminent risks. Even though helmets are now safer and skull fractures have not occurred in football in decades, concussions have become common injury. In Edward Tenner’s article, “Another Look, Back and a Look Ahead,” Tenner explains through the advancements in innovation we become over-confident in our technology, creating revenge effects. Better helmets made players feel safe so they become more violent players, due to the feeling of security. Football has created a surplus of injuries that have become an issue. Arguments and lawsuits have been made in order to make the game safer. That attempt to make the game safer also made it even more dangerous because players believe they are less likely to get hurt. Tenner told us that, “Adams and others (mainly social scientists) have argued conversely that seat belts, by making drivers feel more secure, actually cause more pedestrian casualties even as they reduce motorist injuries” (443). There is a system within us that needs a balance between risk and safety, the more secure we feel it increases the chance we perform reckless actions. The argument is simple, do you enhance equipment safety or decrease it. We become even more at risk with safer equipment whether it’s driving or playing a sport, because we feel secure due to the protection from the equipment. If we decrease the safety it will force us to
Cited: The New Humanities Reader. 4th ed. Ed. Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012 Wilde, Gerald J.S. "Risk Homeostasis Theory and Traffic Accidents: Propositions, Deductions and Discussion of Dissension in Recent Reactions." Ergonomics 31.4 (1988): 441- 21 Apr. 2013. <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140138808966691>.