Our Brains on Technology: A Risky Combo for Drivers
Organized by the National Safety Council University, the webinar “Our Brains on Technology: A Risky Combo for Drivers” highlights the dangers of the use of phone when driving.
Context
Nowadays, our behavior with the phones can be considered as an addiction.
Indeed, according to an AAA Foundation for Road Safety study, 84.4 percent of the people answering the survey admit to text and drive. This study highlights that this behavior dies not only concern teen drivers.
Moreover, distraction driving is a cause in nearly 6 of 10 crashes.
Multitasking
One of the lecturer explained that it is impossible to be fully efficient when doing two tasks at the same time and gave the following examples.:
- Recite letters A-I as fast as you can
- Recite numbers 1-9 as fast as you can
These are two independence tasks, now try to do these tasks at the same time
- Recite A, 1, B, 2… as fast as you can
The second exercise takes longer because our brain cannot fully focus on two things at the same time. Even though the brain can switch from one task to another quickly, it is not as efficient as doing one at a time; there is a “cost”.
Driving seems to be a simple task but it actually takes efforts. So if people are doing something else at the same time, the act of switching from another task to driving takes longer and increases the risk of car crashes.
The power of social communication on your brain
The lecturers tried to answer the following question: why are devices being so rewarded that it’s hard to ignore the ringing of the phone?
First, they did a study of the amount of social information exchanged:
Snapchat: 700 million photos and videos per day last May
Tweets: 500 million per day
Texts: 6 billion sent each day in the US
Email: 144 billion globally on a daily basis
Facebook: 4.5 billion likes daily
Social communication is the main information people receive every day. Nowadays, it passes most of the time via devices (phone for example).
When doing an activity that we like, our brain releases a chemical called “dopamine”. It’s a chemical reward associated with interesting and enjoyable things. Scientists observed that when people interact with their devices, they get a little rush of dopamine.
Moreover, people tend to feel a social pressure to stay connected.
Driving and the use of phone
Driving a car and using the phone is an extremely dangerous combination.
According to the lecturers, communication is addictive. Since the phone allows us to communicate in a massive way and because of the rush of dopamine we feel when using it, phones can be considered as an addiction.
When we are driving, a part of our brain is absorbed by the task of driving; it is then harder to make a rational decision about either to look or not at our phones. The solution would be to put the phone where we can’t see it or off line to be sure that we will not look at it.
Finally, the lecturers explained that the use of the phone behind the wheels should be tackled more efficiency by the law.
