MSN Home
Hotmail
Messenger
My MSN
MSN Directory
Air Tickets/Travel
Autos
Careers & Jobs
City Guides
Dating & Personals
Election 2008
Games
Green
Health & Fitness
Horoscopes
Lifestyle
Maps & Directions
Money
Movies
Music
News
Real Estate/Rentals
Shopping
Spaces
Sports
Tech & Gadgets
TV
Weather
White Pages
Yellow Pages
The Mind-BlackBerry ProblemHey, you! Cell-phone zombie! Get off the road!
By William SaletanUpdated Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008, at 4:37 PM ET
Last month, 25 people died and 130 were injured in a train crash near Los Angeles. The cause, apparently, was a cell phone. In three hours of work before the crash, one of the engineers received 28 text messages and sent 29 more. He sent his last message 22 seconds before impact, just after passing a signal that would have alerted him to the disaster ahead.
PRINTDISCUSSE-MAILRSSRECOMMEND...VIEW AS SINGLE PAGE Yahoo! Buzz FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE
Scientists call this phenomenon "cognitive capture" or "inattention blindness." The mind, captured by the world inside the phone, becomes blind to the world outside it. Millions of people move among us in this half-absent state. Mentally, they're living in another world. It's like the Rapture, except that they've left their bodies behind.
You see them everywhere. The woman alone in the grocery store, a bud in her ear, having an animated conversation with a wall of canned soup. The driver who drifts into your lane while counseling an invisible client. The jogger crossing four lanes of traffic, lost in her iPod. The dad who ignores his kids, living in his BlackBerry the way an alcoholic lives in a bottle.
In many ways, mobile phones are wonderful. Children can reach parents far away. Dissidents in dictatorships can get news and organize. Farmers in undeveloped countries can transact business. Through the phone, you can escape the confines of your environment.
The problem is that physically, you're still living in that environment. Like other creatures, you've evolved to function in the natural world, one setting at a time. Nature has never tested a species's ability to function in two worlds at once.
Now that test is underway. Half the world's people have mobile phones. Eighty-four percent of Americans have them. In this country, more than 2 billion text messages are exchanged per day. Wireless and entertainment companies are bringing television to handheld screens. Already, 40 million Americans use phones or other handheld devices to access the Internet, 27 million use them to watch video, and 19 million use them to download games. The world inside the phone becomes more vivid and engaging every day. It wants your ears, eyes, thumbs—all of you.
That might be OK if you were standing still. But mobile devices have a habit of moving. In a survey this year by Nationwide Mutual Insurance, 81 percent of Americans admitted to talking on a cell phone while driving. Since 2001, in New York alone, more than 1 million tickets have been issued for holding phones at the wheel. In California, the rate is about 7,000 tickets per month. And that's just the people who get caught.
So how is this multitasking experiment going? Not so well. In the Nationwide survey, 45 percent of Americans said they've been hit or nearly hit by a driver on a cell phone. Studies show that the more tasks you dump on drivers—listening, evaluating, answering questions—the worse they perform. They drift off course, miss cues, overlook hazards, and react slowly. In brain scans, you can see the shift of blood flow from spatial-management to language-processing areas. It's the picture of a mind being sucked from one world into another.
Share this article on Digg
Our performance on the two-worlds test, like all evolutionary experiments, can be measured in death. The Federal Railroad Administration reports seven cell-phone-related railway accidents in the last three years, five of them fatal. In California, Michigan, and Texas, police reports document annual cell-phone-related road accidents exceeding 1,000 per state. Six years ago, when only half of all Americans had cell phones, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis linked them to 2,600 driving fatalities and 330,000 injuries per year. And that was before the texting boom.
Today, we're so enslaved to mobile devices that we rely on them even to translate the physical world. Misled by with Global Positioning System devices, people are driving cars into rivers, trees, and sand piles. Twice this year in Bedford Hills, N.Y., drivers have caused train crashes by steering onto the track because their GPS mistook it for a road. Warning signs, pavement markings, and reflective train-signal masts failed to stop them. They trusted the dashboard, not the windshield.
If we don't want this two-worlds experiment to be regulated nature's way—by killing people—then we'd better regulate it ourselves. Here are a few proposed rules of the road. Multitasking is a glorious gift. We can't ban it, nor should we. Want to phone your spouse or your office while walking? Fine. The only life at stake is yours. Want to turn on your car radio or music player? Fine. Listening is easier than talking, and you can mentally or physically shut it off when necessary. Want to chat with your passenger? Fine again. Studies indicate that passenger conversations are less distracting than phone calls, apparently because you're sharing and often referring to the same environment.
The real danger comes from being mentally sucked out of your world while operating thousands of pounds of metal at high speed. Only five states prohibit driving while holding a phone, and if you're an adult with a hands-free phone, no legislator is even proposing to mess with you. That has to change, because research shows that even with a hands-free device, talking on a phone can impair driving skills more than intoxication does. If you need to talk to your spouse or boss, go right ahead—but first, pull over. You're free to visit the other world. Just don't leave your car moving in this one.
PRINTE-MAILRECOMMEND...RSS Yahoo! Buzz FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE
What did you think of this article?
Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
More Human Nature columns
- The Mind-BlackBerry Problem
Hey, you! Cell-phone zombie! Get off the road!
William Saletan | Oct. 23, 2008 - Safe, Legal, and Boring
Can Obama take the politics out of abortion?
William Saletan | Oct. 16, 2008 - Undead Babies
The retreating boundaries of organ harvesting.
William Saletan | Oct. 3, 2008<LI id=navomatic_more>Search for more Human Nature articles <LI id=navomatic_rss>Subscribe to the Human Nature RSS feed - View our complete Human Nature archive
Cartoonists' take on elections.
Absent and accounted for.
most
readmost
e-mailed
- <LI class=theMostListItem>Can You Really See Russia From Alaska?
Yes, but only the boring parts.
Nina Shen Rastogi | Sep 15, 2008 <LI class=theMostListItem>The Mind-BlackBerry Problem
Hey, you! Cell-phone zombie! Get off the road!
William Saletan | Oct 23, 2008 <LI class=theMostListItem>The 20-Hour Workweek
The unemployment rate seems low. That's because it's not counting all those underemployed workers.
Daniel Gross | Oct 22, 2008 <LI class=theMostListItem>Presidential Race
Aug 14, 2008 - This Is Not a Test
Sitting on an aircraft-carrier deck in 1962 didn't prepare John McCain for the presidency.
Fred Kaplan | Oct 23, 2008
- <LI class=theMostListItem>The Mind-BlackBerry Problem
Hey, you! Cell-phone zombie! Get off the road!
William Saletan | Oct 23, 2008 <LI class=theMostListItem>The 20-Hour Workweek
The unemployment rate seems low. That's because it's not counting all those underemployed workers.
Daniel Gross | Oct 22, 2008 <LI class=theMostListItem>Can You Really See Russia From Alaska?
Yes, but only the boring parts.
Nina Shen Rastogi | Sep 15, 2008 <LI class=theMostListItem>This Is Not a Test
Sitting on an aircraft-carrier deck in 1962 didn't prepare John McCain for the presidency.
Fred Kaplan | Oct 23, 2008 - Vote for Obama
McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace.
Christopher Hitchens | Oct 13, 2008
- <LI class=partner_feed_tout>Today's Headlines
- Area Man Saddened To Realize Short Jewish Women With An Interest In Theater His Type
Sat, 25 Oct 2008 09:00:39 -0400 - [audio] Hopes, Dreams Crushed By Panel Of D-List Celebrities
Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:00:48 -0400 - Ron Paul Promises To Return When Country Needs Him Most
Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:00:28 -0400 - » More from the Onion
OPINIONS
Downballot Blues
Broder | The GOP may lose not just the presidency, but some of its brightest rising stars.
David Frum: Time for Triage
- Editorial: McCain's Threat to Democracy
- Ombudsman: The Post Endorsement
- Jorge Mas Santos: The Cuban American Vote
- Ted Mathas: Speeding Tickets for AIG
- <LI class=partner_feed_tout>Today's Headlines
- McCain Camp Ramps Up Attacks on Obama-Rezco Ties
Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:39:09 GMT - How the Financial Crisis Affects U.S. Churches
Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:19:52 GMT - Newsweek Poll: Obama Stays Well Ahead
Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:29:10 GMT - » More from Newsweek
- <LI class=partner_feed_tout>Today's Headlines
- 'Mad Men' of the GOP
Thu, 23 October 2008 20:50:18 GMT - Sleepless in Obamaland
Thu, 23 October 2008 18:16:27 GMT - Eastern Uprising
Thu, 23 October 2008 18:18:55 GMT - » More from The Root