The Importance Of Texting

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Attention and Perception The research done on attention and perception can be used to aid cell phone providers such as AT&T, Verizon wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile in their campaign against texting and driving. Although many individuals who engage in the act of texting and driving believe that texting does not alter their driving abilities the psychological research done on attention and perception as well as the rising number of road fatalities due to texting proves otherwise. Cell phone providers can inform the public that since attention is a limited resource by sending a text while driving you are limiting the amount of attention that you have available to devote to the task of driving. They should inform the public that their ability to successfully text and drive may be influenced by more than their how well they drive and that errors in attention and perception can also play a role. Inattention blindness is a psychological phenomenon that many individuals who text and drive do not consider. According to Ashcraft and Radvansky (2013) inattention blindness is the inability to see an object even though you may be staring directly at it, due to the fact that your attention is elsewhere. Individuals who text and drive are often under the false assumption that if they continue to look at the road while texting then that decreases the likelihood that they will get into a car accident but research shows that inattention blindness is more likely to occur if part of our attention is diverted to a secondary task. Studies done on inattention blindness such as the invisible gorilla test prove that although individual may be staring directly at the road if part of their attention is focused on the message they are trying to send they ... ... middle of paper ... ...sult of texting while driving. By having individual engage in this type of counterfactual reasoning they can become aware of other possible outcomes other than arriving safely that can occur as a result of texting and driving, one of these alternative outcomes being that they don’t arrive at their destination safely. Based on this information we can conclude that if cell phone providers can increase the general public’s belief that getting into a fatal accident while texting and driving is more likely to occur than their availability heuristics would have them believe and allow individuals to consider the possibly fatal outcomes that can occur as a result of texting and driving through the use of counterfactual thinking, cell phone providers can increase the likelihood that individuals will listen to the message of their campaign and decide not to text and drive.

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