Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Matt Richtel published a book in 2015 about the dangers of distraction, especially while driving. Titled A Deadly Wandering, the book covers Reggie Shaw, perpetrator of one of the first car accidents attributed to texting while driving, and some of the neurological research attached to how distraction works and why our mobile devices are so attention-consuming. One of the many topics brought up, and a significant contributor to Reggie’s accident, is inattentional blindness, where the distracted brain does not process all incoming information. This book was published nearly a decade ago. Now, the evidence is ever more incriminating. Current research shows that inattentional blindness may be the most lethal part
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in Richtel 275). When this happens, your brain is still left in the world of the mobile device, proved somewhat terrifying in a study conducted by Dr. Paul Atchley for the University of Kansas. In the study, a test subject (this one named Maggie) has to navigate a driving simulator towards a house where, supposedly, a party is taking place. Directions are delivered to them by phone. Between directions, however, some flavor text about the fake lives of the people at the “party”. The results: “What [Maggie] recalls [about the drive] are the names and details of the lives of all the fictional characters from the party. what she misses in the quiz: everything else. The driving directions, the number of intersections she passed, the buildings she passed.” (Richtel 169). The brain cannot handle both at once, so it shifts to what it finds most attention-grabbing: the phone. Now, over a decade after Reggie’s trial, the evidence is racked with …show more content…
Even if motorists do react, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “A typical reaction time to perceive a threat. running into the road is about 3/4 second, and then you add another 3/4 second to decide to act and move your foot to the brake pedal – that's 1.5 seconds so far. At 55 mph, the distance traveled is 121 feet.” (“Why Your Reaction Time Matters At Speed” 1). These combined with Strayer’s previous metric of “fifty or twenty seconds” passing before full regaining of attention, it is plain to see how dangerous inattentional blindness is to both drivers and passers-by. Another reason inattentional blindness can be so dangerous is because of the false sense of security that “hands-free” devices give. While hands-free cell phone calling does keep a driver’s hands at the wheel, their attention may still be somewhere else. The website Zurich North America states that “Drivers using hands-free and handheld devices fail to see up to 50% of the information in their driving environment” (“Dangers of using hands-free devices”
in Richtel 275). When this happens, your brain is still left in the world of the mobile device, proved somewhat terrifying in a study conducted by Dr. Paul Atchley for the University of Kansas. In the study, a test subject (this one named Maggie) has to navigate a driving simulator towards a house where, supposedly, a party is taking place. Directions are delivered to them by phone. Between directions, however, some flavor text about the fake lives of the people at the “party”. The results: “What [Maggie] recalls [about the drive] are the names and details of the lives of all the fictional characters from the party. what she misses in the quiz: everything else. The driving directions, the number of intersections she passed, the buildings she passed.” (Richtel 169). The brain cannot handle both at once, so it shifts to what it finds most attention-grabbing: the phone. Now, over a decade after Reggie’s trial, the evidence is racked with …show more content…
Even if motorists do react, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “A typical reaction time to perceive a threat. running into the road is about 3/4 second, and then you add another 3/4 second to decide to act and move your foot to the brake pedal – that's 1.5 seconds so far. At 55 mph, the distance traveled is 121 feet.” (“Why Your Reaction Time Matters At Speed” 1). These combined with Strayer’s previous metric of “fifty or twenty seconds” passing before full regaining of attention, it is plain to see how dangerous inattentional blindness is to both drivers and passers-by. Another reason inattentional blindness can be so dangerous is because of the false sense of security that “hands-free” devices give. While hands-free cell phone calling does keep a driver’s hands at the wheel, their attention may still be somewhere else. The website Zurich North America states that “Drivers using hands-free and handheld devices fail to see up to 50% of the information in their driving environment” (“Dangers of using hands-free devices”