Posted on 06/19/2016 6:40:54 AM PDT by upchuck
We are, it seems, long past the moment where there’s nothing worth doing unless we’re on the phone — photographing it, uploading it, texting it, tweeting it.
And it’s killing us...
In 2009, Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced to six years in prison for texting while driving — more specifically, she was paying bills online — and smashing into another vehicle, which burst into flames and killed the driver inside.
Just months after the crash, while awaiting trial, California Highway Patrol spotted Matis-Engle texting while driving on two separate occasions.
“This collision had absolutely no impact on her,” the prosecutor said...
According to the CDC, over 8 people are killed and 1,161 are injured each day in the US by distracted driving. Texting while driving is now the leading cause of teenage deaths in this country. Anecdotally, emergency rooms are seeing an uptick of injuries to “petextrians” — people who text while walking and have, say: run into a 300-pound bear (California, 2012), fallen into a fountain at the mall (Pennsylvania, 2011), or fallen on to train tracks (Pennsylvania, 2012)...
According to a 2012 Time magazine study, 84 percent of people around the world said they couldn’t go a single day without their cellphones. Clearly, they mean it...
Collectively, Americans check their phones 8 billion times a day. For the average person, that shakes out to 46 times a day. A July 2015 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans check their phones a few times an hour. A Baylor University study found that the average female college student spends ten hours per day on the phone.
“That’s astounding,” said Baylor’s lead researcher James Roberts, Ph.D. “As cellphone functions increase, addictions to this seemingly indispensable piece of technology becomes an increasingly realistic possibility.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
It is my belief that the wise parent SHOULD train their child that the smartphone is a device who’s use requires responsible behavior. Just as prior generations taught there kids about responsible use of firearms, so do these modern devices.
These can cause significant life events when used improperly. A distracted driving use that can maim or kill, a sexting event that can mar a life thereafter. Modern tech gives us the two-edged sword of both power and damage. Our young need to be taught the mantra, the truism, that power REQUIRES responsible use.
You said for the most part. I can’t find anything at all good about it.
You said for the most part. I can’t find anything at all good about it.
"And by the way, you're fired!"
“”With all due respect to Dr. Roberts, sounds like an addiction to me.””
My comment was going to be “it’s an addiction worse than tobacco.” It truly is an addiction. They have to absolutely have that crazy appliance in their hands no matter what. I am way past the age of needing a phone when I go to the bathroom or grocery shop or drive a car or for any other reason.
What do you suppose would happen in this country if legislation was proposed to take away all cell phones? There’s no protection for them in the Constitution - except for one they would manufacture exactly like they did for abortion.
The users of them wouldn’t be sitting home bitching on their computers. They’d be surrounding the capitol in protest. Gun owners rights are threatened all the time and have they ever seen us in mass protest? No and it’s way past time!
LOL...Nope...
What...you never put your camera on a rock, set a timer, then ran back and jumped into the picture with a friend or family member???? :)
Like you, I will not talk on a phone or text while driving, because I know how dangerous it is for me. I know my brain doesn’t handle phone conversation well while driving, as I don’t seem to be able to make it multi-task correctly, and it ends up using computational cycles that should be going towards driving. I have not discovered if it is like that for EVERYONE, but I suspect it is.
If my phone rings while I am in my car, I pull over if I have to answer it. If it isn’t work, I don’t answer it. If it is work, and I cannot safely pull over (there are places in my commute where I believe it is far more dangerous to leave and re-enter traffic) I will do one of two things: I will delay pulling over until I reach an area where it is safe, or I answer the call. I have to do it. If someone needs my help, it could be a serious health-care related issue that cannot wait (something like a CT Brain scan that will not appear to diagnose a stroke) so I am going to answer. If it is anyone else, I don’t answer, and just wait and call them later.
Now, I can listen to music or an audiobook with no problem. I feel that I am completely engaged in driving and the road. But talking on a phone is different, it is as if a part of your brain can’t work correctly talking to another person who isn’t in the car with you, as if it is using computational cycles trying to determine where the person is physically that you are talking to on the phone. And never mind texting. That is just the most dangerous thing ever.
But I do “technically” text while driving occasionally, and I don’t see a problem with it. I use voice technology:
ME: “Text my brother Joe.”
PHONE: “What do you want to say?”
ME: “I am almost there, at the junction of Route 1 and Route 5.”
PHONE: “You said: ‘I am almost at the junction of Route 1 and Route 5.’ Do you want to send it?”
ME: “Yes”
PHONE: “Okay. I’ve sent it.”
Then, a few minutes later, my phone buzzes at me, and I press the button under my chin and say “Read my new message.” and it reads it to me.
And so on.
The point is, when I use technology in this fashion, I do not feel impaired in my driving at all. For me, I simply can’t carry on a two way conversation with someone who isn’t physically in the car with me, and I suspect there is a biological brain function why it is not safe for me, and I don’t think I am unique in that respect. I think a lot of people just don’t face up to it.
As for stuff like Facebook, Twitter, etc. not a chance. There is something entirely too narcissistic in them. I have many friends who use it, and they tried for years to get me to sign up, and even entered a Facebook account in my name (without my knowledge) but they have all given up.
“Perhaps it’s natural selection”
A buddy of mine refers to it as Nature’s way of removing dead leaves from the gene pool...
Cell phones are not inherently dangerous, it only stupidity that makes them dangerous.
One good EMP from a major solar flare or otherwise (nuclear stratospheric air blast), and your cellphone becomes an expensive coaster.
I use mine for a portable computer and get all messed up when the phone rings.
Exactly 100%. There is a duality in nearly EVERYTHING. Nuclear Power can destroy a city or provide useful power to it.
A knife can cut a steak or open a package, but it can also be used to kill another human being.
A pen can write a beautiful stanza of poetry, or a vicious, scurrilous diatribe meant to destroy the integrity of someone else.
A gun can provide food/protection/entertainment, or it can used to commit an armed robbery.
And so on.
I make a subtle point about that in one of the scenes in my book ‘EMP’. A giant solar flare causes an EMP one night and knocks out most tech. A couple of days later a drunk man starts mowing his lawn with an old lawn mower and people realize that maybe there is more tech available than they thought. The main character is caught off guard when people in the assembled crowd pull out their cell phones to check them. Two days after the EMP turned them into useless hunks of plastic and metal, and the people were still carrying them around.
They are an addiction.
LOL! Seen that before. I-95 southbound in FL, some assclown had a hard back propped on his steering wheel. WTH? Now that was NUTZ!
My commute is about an hour. A while back, as I left my home town, there was a car behind me that stayed behind me all the way to the town where I work.
When I drive, I am religious in keeping track of where I am, what I am doing, and what is around me, so I am in the habit of doing a quick scan of my mirrors every 15 seconds or so.
I noticed this car behind me, and the woman was talking on the cell phone very animatedly. Every single time I scanned for the entire ride, she was talking in exactly that same manner, all the way to where I turned off.
I was astounded. I am pretty close mouthed and recalcitrant in the morning, not inclined to conversation at all, and I wondered just what someone could be talking about like that for an hour????
“”I don’t even own a cell phone....””
I do but it’s in my purse for emergencies. I use it to call the power company or cable company when we’ve lost all power. You will find that is the reason most senior citizens own them. We got our first one for traveling from CA to GA 10 years ago when we moved. Have never seen the need otherwise. I dislike the phone ringing in the house as it is without having a chain to drag around which is what they are IMO. I recently had to get a new phone as the technology in the old one was no longer supported - one advertised on TV - and pay $10 per month and that’s for something I probably won’t use more than 4 times a year.
I’ve blocked the maximum number of phone numbers to our landline allowed by our phone company (48) last month and so far in June and now I have to delete some to be able to add more. The most ever. Our phone company allows us to enter a code to add the last number calling on the blocked list without having to go through their procedure. I love it.
Did I get off the subject? Of course. That’s what we old folks do!
I don’t know much about “old folks” yet...I’m only 67 years old...
Collectively, Americans check their phones 8 billion times a day. For the average person, that shakes out to 46 times a day. A July 2015 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans check their phones a few times an hour. A Baylor University study found that the average female college student spends ten hours per day on the phone.
“That’s astounding,” said Baylor’s lead researcher James Roberts, Ph.D. “As cellphone functions increase, addictions to this seemingly indispensable piece of technology becomes an increasingly realistic possibility.”
Like much in the media, this level of overwrought hand-wringing is a bit overblown. Substitute something else that also distracts drivers from the road ahead, such as "talking" or "eating", and re-read the sentences above:
According to a 2012 Time magazine study, 84 percent of people around the world said they couldn’t go a single day without talking. Clearly, they mean it...
Collectively, Americans open their mouths to talk 8 billion times a day. For the average person, that shakes out to 46 times a day. A July 2015 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans talk a few times an hour. A Baylor University study found that the average female college student spends ten hours per day talking.
< “That’s astounding,” said Baylor’s lead researcher James Roberts, Ph.D. “As talking increases, addictions to this seemingly indispensable act become an increasingly realistic possibility.”
I believe in using technology where available if one wants to, but I am also a firm believer in the fact that it is going to go away someday, and probably when we least want or expect it to.
I have mentally prepared myself for that, so that I can handle it. I think that there are huge swaths of the population though, that accept Internet access as the air they breathe. They think it will ALWAYS be there.
I read about some millennial startup company, and they were eschewing all hard copy of anything, and it was all going to be 100% in the cloud all the time, and that was it.
I thought, “Man, will those people be bummed out when the Internet goes away.”
One of them is my 22-year-old son. I sleep with an actual security blanket and a stuffed cat.
because he or she is on her cell phone
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