Tag Archives: texting

Looking at the driver next to you who is clearly looking at their phone

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How often do you pull near another vehicle and take a quick look over? These days, you will often see a driver looking at their phone. Recognizing phone use while driving is relatively easy to spot: the driver’s head is tilted down, not looking at the road. There is a particular posture, as illustrated in the photo below:

Photo by Hassan OUAJBIR on Pexels.com

This can occur while accelerating in leaving an intersection or driving at high speed down the highway. Many drivers appear unable to keep their eyes off their phone while their vehicle is in motion.

Perhaps this is just a sign of our era? Americans love driving and love smartphones. Even as deaths while driving increase, phone use continues. The acknowledgment of a public problem with phone use while driving from years ago seems to have faded away a bit.

From a driving norms perspective, is there a polite way to signal to another driver that you can see their phone use and request they pay attention to their safety and your safety?

From a social perspective, is the smartphone the new car in that we are willing to reorganize society around using smartphone use rather than fitting smartphones into our existing social order?

The dangers of distracted walkers

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Watch out for those texting pedestrians:

Distracted walking is most common among millennials aged 18 to 34, but women 55 and older are most likely to suffer serious injuries, including broken bones, according to a 2013 study in Accident Analysis & Prevention. Visits to emergency rooms for injuries involving distracted pedestrians on cellphones more than doubled between 2004 and 2010 and continues to grow. Among more than 1,000 people hospitalized after texting while walking, injuries included a shattered pelvis and injuries to the back, head and neck.

According to the National Safety Council, “the rise in cellphone-distracted walking injuries parallels the eightfold increase in cellphone use in the last 15 years.” Although the council found that 52 percent of distracted walking episodes occurred at home, the nationwide uptick in pedestrian deaths resulting from texting while walking has prompted the federal government to offer grants of $2 million to cities to combat distracted walking…

Alas, most people seem to think the problem involves other people. They’re not the ones who walk distracted. A new survey of some 6,000 people released last week by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, found that while 74 percent said that “other people” were usually or always walking while distracted, only 29 percent said the same about themselves. And only 46 percent considered the behavior “dangerous.”

I don’t do this much myself for two reasons. First, it slows my walking speed down. I’d rather get to my destination quicker and then text. Second, I generally don’t like impeding pedestrian traffic, whether the issue is texting, stopping for a conversation, gawking, etc.

Maybe the best solution – hinted at in the end of the article – is to be a defensive pedestrian in the same way that you are supposed to practice defensive driving. Be alert. Look around. Be aware of pedestrians and other possible obstacles. Have an alternative action in mind should others not respond appropriately.

Perhaps we should have a talking and texting lane for those who want to engage in this?

Aziz Ansari and sociologist Eric Klinenberg collaborate on modern romance

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Comedian Aziz Ansari is familiar with the work of Sherry Turkle and has done research with sociologist Eric Klinenberg:

While every other comedian — from Tina Fey to Amy Poehler — is writing a memoir, Ansari decided he’d team up with a sociologist to conduct studies on love in the age of technology for his first title. The comedian revealed his book cover exclusively to TIME and chatted about his research, his stand-up and the end of Parks and Rec…

I had been starting to do this stand-up about dating and realized that the current romantic landscape is way different. All these very modern problems — like, sitting and deciding what to write in a text — that’s a very new conundrum.

Then I randomly met a couple people who were in academic fields that did work that vaguely applied to this stuff. Like, this woman Sherry Turkle who had done all this research about texting and found that you say things over text you would never say to someone’s face. So the medium of communication we’re using is kind of making us sh—ttier people. And then I thought if you take that and put it toward romantic interactions, that’s why people are so f—ing rude…

It ended up being a sociology book that has my sense of humor, but it also has some academic heft to it. I wrote it with this sociologist, Eric Klinenberg, and he helped me design this huge research project that we did. We interviewed hundreds of people all across the world — we went to Tokyo and Paris and Wichita to really get a wide scope. We also interviewed all sorts of academics. The resulting book is really unique. I can’t think of any book I would really compare it to.

I wonder how the two worlds involved here – those who read books by comedians and sociologists – will react to this book:

1. Will the general public be interested in a comedian utilizing more academic data to tackle a a popular topic? Could a comedian reach people in a way that a book written by a sociologist alone could not? Or, will the public still not really trust the data and continue to rely on their own anecdotes of online love?

2. How will sociologists view Klinenberg’s contribution? Is this data really any good or it is too impressionistic? While sociologists talk about public sociology, popular pieces of writing are often derided for not being serious enough. Was Klinenberg secretly conducting an ethnographic project on the lives of modern comedians?

No matter the critical reception from either camp, I imagine this book will sot a lot more copies than the typical sociology monograph…

College change: syllabi requiring students to check email every day

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As technology shifts, college syllabi must as well: there are syllabi that ask students to check email each day.

How to get students, some of whom consider their school e-mail accounts so irrelevant that they give their parents the passwords, to take a look?

At the University of Southern California, Nina Eliasoph’s Sociology 250 syllabus reads: “You must check e-mail DAILY every weekday,” with boldface for emphasis…

When job offers arrive, Ratliff often has excited students turn up in her office only to realize they have forgotten a form they need to send to the company. Using e-mail to get the form or to send it apparently does not cross their minds.

“Some of them didn’t even seem to know they had a college e-mail account,” May said. Nor were these wide-eyed freshmen. “This is considered a junior-level class, so they’d been around.”

That is when he added to his course syllabuses: “Students must check e-mail daily.” May said the university now recommends similar wording…

 

The next step would seem to be having students and faculty and college staff all start using text messages or social media. However, this leads to other issues. Asking people to switch to new technologies which could then require training and practice. Privacy concerns could arise, particularly compared to more impersonal emails. There might be the argument that doing this means getting on a technology treadmill that goes faster and faster – students switch to the next big thing and everyone else must follow.

Another interesting question to ask is what kind of interaction aided by technology best leads to improved learning outcomes? Needing to communicate information is important but what exactly boosts learning? In The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein argues new technologies don’t typically boost learning even as they might improve engagement. Yet, colleges are moving to moving to more online learning. This can lead to learning at different paces, cuts down on costs, and makes classes available to more people. But, does it lead to more learning?

Studies suggest texting in class is related to lower grades, GPA

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Several studies in recent years have examined the link between students texting and using Facebook in in class and their grades. The Chicago Tribune summarizes the studies:

In the past five years researchers have published the results of five surveys and experiments that link texting and Facebooking with lower academic performance. In 2011, researchers at California State University reported that students who received or sent a high number of text messages during a video recorded lecture scored worse on a quiz than those who received or sent few or no text messages.

In a 2012 study, a researcher at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania surveyed 1,800 students about how often they Facebook, instant message, email, text, search online and talk on the phone in class. Among the results: 69 percent of students reported they had texted in class, and students who texted or used Facebook more frequently in class had lower overall semester GPAs. The author of that study, Reynol Junco, also co-wrote a study that linked texting and Facebooking during study time with lower GPAs…

“That I can be definitive about: That’s not working. If you’re going to search (online) during class, I don’t have any data telling you to stop. If you’re going to email during class, I don’t have any data to tell you to stop. But do not text or Facebook during class. Do not text or Facebook while you’re studying for your classes, because that’s another area where this is definitely a negative.”…

Junco’s evidence against texting and Facebooking is correlational, meaning that his studies show that students who Facebook or text more in class or while studying do worse academically, but not that the texting or Facebooking itself is causing the problem. It’s possible that, say, an easily distractible student is texting a lot and doing poorly in class, with the underlying cause of poor performance being the distractibility, not the texting. But Junco points to two other college studies in which researchers, not students, largely determined which students would do the most media multitasking in class.

In both the studies — the California State study and one published in 2012 in the journal Computers and Education — a form of media multitasking (texting or Facebooking) was linked to lower student performance.

It would be interesting to pair data like this with student’s perceptions of whether they are doing better or worse in a class because they are texting, browsing, or not. It would be one thing if students knew that texting was distracting and did it anyway and yet another thing if they were so used to texting that they were unaware of its possible effects.

Let’s say future studies more clearly establish a causal link. Would colleges then move to banning cell phone use or Facebooking in class? Or is this one of those areas that would generate a lot of negative feedback from students who would want the freedom to do more of what they want in class?

An emerging portrait of emerging adults in the news, part 1

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In recent weeks, a number of studies have been reported on that discuss the beliefs and behaviors of the younger generation, those who are now between high school and age 30 (an age group that could also be labeled “emerging adults”). In a three-part series, I want to highlight three of these studies because they not only suggest what this group is doing but also hints at the consequences.

Almost a week ago, a story ran along the wires about a new study linking “hyper-texting” and excessive usage of social networking sites with risky behaviors:

Teens who text 120 times a day or more — and there seems to be a lot of them — are more likely to have had sex or used alcohol and drugs than kids who don’t send as many messages, according to provocative new research.

The study’s authors aren’t suggesting that “hyper-texting” leads to sex, drinking or drugs, but say it’s startling to see an apparent link between excessive messaging and that kind of risky behavior.

The study concludes that a significant number of teens are very susceptible to peer pressure and also have permissive or absent parents, said Dr. Scott Frank, the study’s lead author…

The study was done at 20 public high schools in the Cleveland area last year, and is based on confidential paper surveys of more than 4,200 students.

It found that about one in five students were hyper-texters and about one in nine are hyper-networkers — those who spend three or more hours a day on Facebook and other social networking websites.

About one in 25 fall into both categories.

Hyper-texting and hyper-networking were more common among girls, minorities, kids whose parents have less education and students from a single-mother household, the study found.

Several interesting things to note in this study:

1. It did not look at what exactly is being said/communicated in these texts or in social networking use. This study examines the volume of use – and there are plenty of high school students who are heavily involved with these technologies.

2. One of the best parts of this story is that the second paragraph is careful to suggest that finding an association between these behaviors does not mean that they cause each other. In other words, there is not a direct link between excessive testing and drug use. Based on this dataset, these variables are related. (This is a great example of “correlation without causation.”)

3. What this study calls for is regression analysis where we can control for other possible factors. It would then give us the ability to compare two students with the same family background and same educational performance and isolate whether texting was really the factor that led to the risky behaviors. If I had to guess, factors like family life and performance in school are more important in predicting these risky behaviors. Then, excessive texting for SNS use is an intervening variable. Why this study did not do this sort of analysis is unclear – perhaps they already have a paper in the works.

Overall, we need more research on these associated variables. While it is interesting in itself that there are large numbers of emerging adults who text a lot and use SNS a lot, we ultimately want to know the consequences. Part two and three of this series will look at a few studies that offer some possible consequences.

A complete ban on cell phone use in cars?

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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggests banning all cell phone communication in the car might be needed to reduce accidents and injuries:

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he believes motorists are distracted by any use of mobile phones while driving, including hands-free calls, as his department begins research that may lead him to push for a ban.

LaHood, whose campaign against texting and making calls while driving has led to restrictions in 30 states, says his concerns extend to vehicle information and entertainment systems such as Ford Motor Co.’s Sync and General Motors Co.’s OnStar.

If LaHood pushes forward with this, it will be fascinating to see how people, companies, and interest groups respond. One analyst suggests in this article that these practices are already ingrained and would be very difficult, if not impossible to change. Perhaps people will even suggest it is their “right” to use a cell phone in the car. However, the government could enact certain regulations tied to certain incentives that might help people (and lower levels of government) make this choice. All in all, this could be a very interesting cultural battle between safety and individualism.

A reminder: it wasn’t that long ago that no one could talk by phone while in the car.