Sep 18, 2020
“Good” Driver’s You Can’t Multitask
Texting while driving is never safe. It is humanely impossible to multitask. Repeatedly switching back and forth from project to project can impair our ability to function at our best.
Imagine a hummingbird darting from flower to flower and then back to the original flower. Chances are the hummingbird won’t be operating at it’s best. Like the hummingbird, the same goes for humans.
Research shows that texting utilizes substantial attentional resources and that individuals who text while driving are 23 times more likely to get into an accident or narrowly avoid an accident.
Picower Institue Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, Earl K. Miller Ph.D., says, “It is difficult for pretty much everyone to do several things at once. Studies have shown that people who have the most confidence that they can multitask are the worst at it,”
This same overconfidence is frequently what creates accidents. They thought they “had enough time,” “they thought they could make it through the yellow light,” and so on. As drivers and human beings, we owe it to the world, and ourselves especially, to be safe.
Knowing about the effect of texting on attention, do you believe it’s safe to text while driving? Why or why not? If you do text while going — which suggests that you think it’s safe — how do you view that decision based on the book’s evidence?
