GoPro: personal safety and environmental impact

Too often I see divers finning with their GoPro dangling, free to hit anything.
It's a bad habit to avoid for many reasons. The most important is the protection of the marine environment: a freely dangling GoPro poses a hazard to the delicate reef ecosystem. It's easy to hit and break fragile corals or get entangled, for example, in a gorgonian, causing irreparable damage.
Secondly, there's personal safety: a dangling camera could get entangled in lines, abandoned nets, or, even worse, in the structure of a wreck itself, creating potentially serious hazards. In the video below, you see footage shot at Five Rocks, in Ari Atoll, Maldives, in 2019. The current was "impetuous" (which prevented me from intervening) and the diver (from another boat), already struggling badly, got entangled several times on the seabed, without ever noticing! Luckily, the GoPro freed itself, because a situation like that could also have led to panic and an uncontrolled ascent.
Furthermore, you should also consider protecting your equipment: letting the GoPro dangle exposes it to constant bumps, which can lead to scratching the protective lens or breaking and flooding the housing, with obvious damage to the camera.
Finally, operational readiness is essential for not missing the moment! The underwater world is unpredictable, and important encounters often last only a few moments. If the GoPro is off or far from you, the time it takes to retrieve it, turn it on, and aim it will make you miss the chance to get great footage. Keeping it close, on, and ready to use, however, drastically increases your chances of capturing every fleeting moment.
Remember: at all times, your GoPro must be secured to your BCD and always held firmly in your hand.