Wrap rage, also called package rage, is the common name for heightened levels of

anger Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat. A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, su ...

and

frustration In psychology, frustration is a common emotional response to opposition, related to anger, annoyance and disappointment. Frustration arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of an individual's will or goal and is likely to in ...

resulting from the inability to open packaging, particularly some heat-sealed plastic

blister pack A blister pack is any of several types of pre-formed plastic packaging used for small consumer goods, foods, and for pharmaceuticals. The primary component of a blister pack is a cavity or pocket made from a formable web, usually a thermofor ...

s and clamshells. People can be injured while opening difficult packaging: cutting tools pose a sharp hazard to the person opening the package, as well as to its contents.

Background

Packaging sometimes must be made difficult to open. For example, regulations dictate that some

over-the-counter drug Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are medicines sold directly to a consumer without a requirement for a prescription from a healthcare professional, as opposed to prescription drugs, which may be supplied only to consumers possessing a valid prescr ...

s have

tamper resistance Tamperproofing, conceptually, is a methodology used to hinder, deter or detect unauthorised access to a device or circumvention of a security system. Since any device or system can be foiled by a person with sufficient knowledge, equipment, and ti ...

to deter unauthorized opening before delivery to the intended customer and be in

child-resistant packaging Child-resistant packaging or CR packaging is special packaging used to reduce the risk of children ingesting hazardous materials. This is often accomplished by the use of a special safety cap. It is required by regulation for prescription drugs, o ...

. Other packages are intentionally made difficult to open to reduce

package pilferage Package pilferage is the theft of part of the contents of a package. It may also include theft of the contents but leaving the package, perhaps resealed with bogus contents. Small packages can be pilfered from a larger package such as a shippin ...

and

shoplifting Shoplifting is the theft of goods from an open retail establishment, typically by concealing a store item on one's person, in pockets, under clothes or in a bag, and leaving the store without paying. With clothing, shoplifters may put on items ...

. Hard plastic blister packs also protect the products while they are being shipped. In addition, using transparent plastic allows customers to view products directly before purchasing them. The term ''wrap rage'' itself came about as a result of media attention to the phenomenon. Although other variants such as ''packaging rage'' have been used as early as 1998, Word Spy identifies the earliest use of ''wrap rage'' as coming from ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' in 2003. The

American Dialect Society The American Dialect Society (ADS), founded in 1889, is a learned society "dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it." The Society ...

identified the term as one of the most useful of 2007.

Frustration and injuries

In 2006, '' Consumer Reports'' magazine recognized the wrap rage phenomenon when it created the Oyster Awards for the products with the hardest-to-open packaging. A story in the ''

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the Alle ...

'' about wrap rage was featured on ''

The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show fo ...

'' when host

Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program '' The Colbert Report'' from 2005 ...

tried to use a knife to remove a new calculator from its plastic packaging, to no avail. A 2004 survey in ''Yours'', a British magazine aimed at people over 50, found that 99% of the 2,000 respondents said packaging had become harder to open over the last 10 years, 97% said there was "too much excess packaging", and 60% said they had bought a product designed with more easily opened packaging. In a survey conducted at the Cox School of Business, almost 80 percent of households "expressed anger, frustration or outright rage" with plastic packaging. Consumers also tend to use words such as "hate" and "difficult" when describing these products. Consumers sometimes use potentially unsafe tools such as

razor blade A razor is a bladed tool primarily used in the removal of body hair through the act of shaving. Kinds of razors include straight razors, safety razors, disposable razors, and electric razors. While the razor has been in existence since before ...

boxcutter A utility knife is any type of knife used for general manual work purposes.Peterson, Harold L., ''Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World'', London: Herbert Jenkins Ltd., , p. 1 Such knives were originally fixed-blade knives with du ...

snips Snips, also known as shears, are hand tools used to cut sheet metal and other tough webs. It is a cutting tool. Workers use various types of snips, either straight or blend one be obtained. The straight or bent being not only for straight cuts b ...

and

ice pick The ice pick is a pointed metal tool used from the 1800s to the 1900s to break, pick or chip at ice. The design consists of a sharp metal spike attached to a wooden handle. The tool's design has been relatively unchanged since its creation. The ...

s in their attempts to open packages. This can also result in the packaging itself becoming sharp. In the ''Yours'' survey, 71% of respondents said they had been injured while trying to open food packaging. The most common injury respondents had from trying to open packaging was "a cut finger, followed by a cut hand, sprained wrist, bruised hand and strained shoulder muscle." According to a British study, over 60,000 people receive hospital treatment each year due to injuries from opening food packaging. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that attempts to open packaging caused about 6,500 emergency department visits in the U.S. in 2004. A 2009 study conducted by the Institute for Good Medicine found that 17 percent of adults over the age of 21 were either injured at least once or know of someone who was injured while opening a holiday or birthday gift.

Solutions

Packaging design

When packagers and retailers are willing, there are many possible solutions to allow easy access to package contents. Easy access, however, can also allow more pilferage and shoplifting. Some companies are making their packs easier for consumers to open to help reduce frustration. Other companies must keep tamper resistant packages. Forces driving the efforts to improve packaging include pressure from consumers, retailers, and senior citizens who find it increasingly difficult to open packaging as they age. Several methods of making packages easy to open have long been available. These include

perforation A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes collectively are called a ''perforation''. The process of creating perforations is called perfor ...

s, " tear tapes" and break-open components. Some easy-open features can add extra cost to packaging.

Opening

Household scissors or a

utility knife A utility knife is any type of knife used for general manual work purposes.Peterson, Harold L., ''Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World'', London: Herbert Jenkins Ltd., , p. 1 Such knives were originally fixed-blade knives with d ...

are sometimes used to open difficult packaging.

Tin snips Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

are effective for tough plastics; the higher

mechanical advantage Mechanical advantage is a measure of the force amplification achieved by using a tool, mechanical device or machine system. The device trades off input forces against movement to obtain a desired amplification in the output force. The model for ...

of compound metal snips make it possible to cut such packages open even using little hand strength.

Trauma shears Trauma shears, also known as Tuff Cuts (a brand name), are a type of scissors used by paramedics and other emergency medical personnel to quickly and safely cut clothing from injured people. They usually consist of a plastic handle with a metal bl ...

have also shown to be effective at opening packaging of this type.

References