IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013 - 57
a user's awareness as it is used; in
a typical moment on the phone, a
user does not focus on the telephone
itself, even as the device remains
clutched in hand and actively suspended beside the face.
But the most important characteristic of the experience of the
phone users is what stands forward:
the user becomes inclined to focus
less and less on her or his surrounding environment and more and more
on the phone conversation itself.
The phone user becomes captivated
by the content of the discussion, the
presence of the other person, the
words spoken and heard. And since
many users talk on the phone on a
regular basis, they develop learned
habits with regard to the device in
just these terms. Through the user's
intentions toward the phone conversation, and bolstered by the habits of perception formed through a
personal history of phone usage,
the phone conversation stands forward and is experienced with the
greatest significance, often expanding so far as to occupy the user's
awareness overall.8
This phenomenological account
of the experience of the phone suggests an explanation of the driving
impairment brought about by cell
phone usage. When a driver uses a
phone (handheld or hands-free), she
or he is presented with a habitual
inclination to have her or his overall
awareness overtaken by the content
8
In my own work, I have attempted to move
beyond Ihde's account of the experience of technology which tends to chiefly emphasize the way
a tool to which one has grown accustomed withdraws and becomes transparent in one's awareness, such as eyeglasses that the user almost
forgets are being worn. I attempt to additionally
articulate the ways that technologies have the
potential to radically reconfigure the shape of a
user's awareness, relevant here in the way that
the phone inclines a user's awareness to become
almost entirely occupied by the content of the
conversation, the surrounding environment falling to the background of what is experienced. I
have used the term "field composition" to refer
to the quality of some technological relations in
which the device shapes or composes the user's
overall field of awareness [22].
of the phone conversation. That is,
through the strength of learned habits, a driver's conscious attention
becomes largely occupied not by the
demands of driving, but instead by
the conversation on the phone. It is
not even necessary for the phoneassociated habits to be stronger than
the driver's intentions toward driving. As a habit, the inclination to
focus primarily on the conversation
can creep in and subtly tug the driver's awareness away from the road.
For our purposes here, both
the cognitive scientists' account
and the phenomenological account
deliver the same general explanation of the distraction caused by
the phone: the driver's attention is
diverted away from the road and
toward the phone conversation. The
cognitive scientists' account stresses
do not require a user to look at
the phone.
Some drivers may be under the
impression that texting is dangerously distracting for only one main
reason: texting typically requires a
driver to look away from the road.
Under this line of reasoning, one
might then assume that texting
schemes that allow for a driver to
text while continuing to keep her or
his eyes on the road-i.e., no-look
texting schemes-should not bring
about in the same dangers. However,
as we have seen in the case of handheld and hands-free phone conversation, it is possible to be distracted
while continuously looking ahead.
To understand how no-look texting
can be distracting, we can turn again
to the explanation of driver distraction based on driver attention.
Some drivers may be under the
impression that texting is dangerously
distracting only because texting typically
requires a driver to look away
from the road.
the user's inherently limited attention
capacities, and the phenomenological account emphasizes learned
habits of attention. Together, they
help explain the empirical evidence,
which shows a dangerous drop in
driving performance to accompany
both handheld and hands-free phone
usage. These accounts together make
one thing clear: the explanation of
cell-phone-induced driver distraction simply does not reduce to a story
involving only claims about whether
both of a driver's hands grip the
steering wheel.
Driver Distraction
of No-Look Texting
Just as it is possible to talk about
the distracting effects of handsfree phone conversation, it is also
possible to talk about the distracting effects of texting schemes that
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE
|
SprING 2013
Like driving itself, and like talking on the phone, texting is an example of a task which places demands
on a driver's attention. And even
no-look versions of texting would be
examples of demanding tasks. Thus,
engaging in no-look texting could be
expected to result in driving impairment because the brain is limited in
its ability to simultaneously address
the two demanding tasks of driving
and no-look texting in a safe manner.
In addition, texting can be expected
to result in driving impairment
because, through a personal history
of using text messaging systems, a
driver becomes habitually inclined
to at times focus attention more on
the content of the text-based conversation than on the road. This should
remain the case whether a driver
looks at the words typed into the
phone, or instead engages in no-look
|
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