REALLY SCARY TV show!

Just saw a pretty terrifying TV program, PBS's MotorWeek, believe it or
not.

Take a look:

http://www.mpt.org/motorweek/fyi.shtml

An excerpt:
================================================== ====================
17-year old Joseph Biondo says he knows texting while driving is not a
safe thing to do.

BIONDO: "It distracts your eye from the road; you pay less attention to
what's going on around you."

But he does it anyway.
================================================== =====================

I was going out but I think I'll go hide under the bed instead...

On May 5, 1:25 pm, XS11E > wrote:
> Just saw a pretty terrifying TV program, PBS's MotorWeek, believe it or
> not.
>
> Take a look:
>
> http://www.mpt.org/motorweek/fyi.shtml
>
> An excerpt:
> ================================================== ====================
> 17-year old Joseph Biondo says he knows texting while driving is not a
> safe thing to do.
>
> BIONDO: "It distracts your eye from the road; you pay less attention to
> what's going on around you."
>
> But he does it anyway.
> ================================================== =====================
>
> I was going out but I think I'll go hide under the bed instead...

Hah, you're funny.

It's interesting the perspective people take on this. You've seen
those Allstate commercials..."when multitasking, a driver is xx
percent more likely to be involved in an accident."

I like to take it to a deeper level...psychology! Woot! My major has
application!

The problem with this kind of multitasking comes down to two major
issues: the size of the corpus collosum and the cognitive space of the
individual. The former is just a big bundle of nerves that pass
information from one side of the brain to the other. It's thicker in
women...actually for a bit more on this, with a laugh and some
interesting thoughts on education, check out this:
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalks...flashEnabled=1

The latter (cognitive space), which I know much more about, is the
idea that we only have a certain amount of "room" in our consciousness
for ideas. Every individual has their own amount and type of space.
The amount of space that something takes up depends on how good we are
at it, how important it is to us, and how salient it is to us. We
have to have these requirements because we are, as a race, "cognitive
misers." We don't have enough cog. space to, for example, take in
every single detail of the rooms around us at all times. WE jsut
can't do it, we get overwhelmed. So we filter to salient stimuli.
Then we prioritize with importance. Then the things we're good at
take less concentration than the things we utterly suck at.

So imagine yourself behind the wheel. What's salient to you? Okay,
the wheel itself, maybe the radio and your iPod (or other music
controlling device), the road up to twelve seconds in front of you and
slightly to each side, maybe even occasionally your mirrors. If your
phone rings/buzzes, it becomes salient too. Believe it or not, most
drivers place a lot of importance on how they drive. It's a mix of
a)safety and b)socialization. the (b) function there is because
society places a lot of value on "good" drivers, though the definition
is unfortunately different from person to person. But look around,
you're probably not noticing: the carpeting in the car, each tree that
goes by, the colors of the shutters you pass, and so on and so on.
And why bother? They're not important! See how this works?

Now the phone rings. Suddenly both its salience and importance shoot
way up in your world, matching perhaps...your driving. But here's the
thing...if you're good at driving (as most of us probably are, with
such an interest in cars), *it's probably OK to reach for the phone to
read that text, or even reply to it*. You're good enough to know just
the right moment to look away, where nothing will change on the road.
You know how to handle the cognitive pressure. Then again, some of
you might be old enough that you're particularly bad at texting.
Then...you might have a problem. With young, first- and second-year
drivers, the opposite is true. They're *incredible* at texting...but
they honestly just don't have the skills driving to reduce the
available cognitive space.

This may sound like an argument to let everyone do both, and it's
probably not a problem. Well, no. Given the pressure, we do the
easier task better and faster, and the hard task worse. For you,
that's okay. For them, it's deadly. I'd rather screw up a text than
driving any day. Tell your kids to keep their eyes on the road. ;-)

Then again, I'm of the texting generation, AND I'm a good driver. I
guess I have more available cognitive space than you!!!

Thoughts?
-r0ll

r0lliSl1fe > wrote:

> Then again, I'm of the texting generation, AND I'm a good driver.
> I guess I have more available cognitive space than you!!!
>
> Thoughts?

No, you don't. Driving in traffic takes 100% of the attention of the
most capable driver, anything less explains why there are almost 40,000
traffic fatalites a year in the USA. Even devoting 100% of your
attention on driving does not guarantee you won't have an accident but
devoting less than 100% just ups the odds.