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Don’t smash your smartphone tonight, even though you’re 200 percent more likely to

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Whatever happens tonight, remember that it’s not worth destroying your phone over. Despite your team fervor, do you really want to experience athletic heartbreak and have to shell out another few hundred bucks to replace the smartphone you just smashed? As it turns out, tonight is one of the most dangerous nights for iPhones, Androids, and other smartphone devices. According to smartphone repair and trade-in company iCracked, if your team loses in the big game, you’re extremely likely to take your anger out on your phone. In fact, you’re three times as likely to destroy your mobile device if your team loses, which is really just rubbing salt into the wound.

It makes sense, of course — all that adrenaline, that alcohol, that almost-there-but-not-quite feeling combines to from a truly lethal situation for your most loyal mobile companion. Consequently, iCracked notes that individuals living in the losing Super Bowl teams’ states ask for smartphone repairs at a rate of nearly 200 percent more on the day after the devastating loss than on any other day.

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“When we discovered the pretty hilarious trend, we knew sports fans across the U.S. would relate to the frustration of such a crushing loss,” iCracked cofounder and CEO AJ Forsythe said in a statement. As Mashable reports, the iPhone and Galaxy repair company saw a 176 percent spike in Washington for smartphone requests after the Seattle Seahawks fell to the New England Patriots. And the year before that, when the Denver Broncos lost, Colorado residents needed repairs 184 percent more than usual. So just keep your phone in your pockets today, ok?

To be fair, it’s not just sporting events that Americans lose their minds (and their phones) over, though it is the most pronounced day of smartphone injury. iCracked notes a 68 percent jump in repair requests on December 26, a 51 percent increase in repair requests following July 4, and a 50 percent spike after Halloween. There’s something about merry-making, it seems, that always end in mobile tragedy.

So be smart this year. If your team doesn’t do so well, let it be the only thing that loses on this evening.

Lulu Chang
Lulu Chang
Former Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
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