There was another disturbing news local story this week. The Providence Journal reports that a Rhode Island driver ran into an empty police car because he was text messaging. Both cars were totaled. At least in this incident those involved walked away from the accident alive.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, drivers who multi task are more than four times likely to cause an accident than drivers, who well, just drive. Apparently the statistics, as you might expect, are much worse for people who drive while text messaging.
I am all for optimizing productivity. I am a mobile software developer. I want you to enjoy your cell phone experience and to use our time management app to its fullest. I even like Twitter.
However, text messaging is not something to do while driving. EVER!
Apart from the obvious reasons like
1) You could die.
2) You could kill someone.
There is this one.
3) It can wait.
Really.
From developing and supporting mobile task management software for over a decade, I am well aware that there is a natural tendency for many people to view everything they do to be equally important. Differentiating between tasks is not always a clear cut decision making process.
We have an innate urge to add extra importance to a lot of tasks that are not inherently important. Anything out of the ordinary is more likely to get noticed. An urgent buzzing or a ringtone is designed to get our attention and to shoehorn its way into whatever else we might be thinking about or doing.
We also often take for granted as unimportant some tasks that are really important, but that we do automatically, routinely or out of habit. For example, brushing your teeth is important to your health and your social life. Reading to your children prepares them for a lifetime of learning, imagination and fun. Cooking dinner. Walking upright. Breathing. Driving.
Add into that the fact that people are not always good at setting priorities when there are conflicting demands on their time, and it can be especially hard to resist that buzzing temptation from your cell phone when you are under a lot of pressure.
There is growing evidence that much of what we think of as hyper efficient or multi-tasking, is actually trying to handle too much media input simultaneously and it is often counter productive. Important information often slips by unnoticed, like the fact that there is a parked police car in front of you. Where driving is concerned, it isn't just counterproductive, it is dangerous and potentially life threatening. So please, don't let the "whizz bang" features of your cell phone lead you into a distracted "whiz CRASH!" Take care of the email, text message, phone call, only once you are safely parked, when you can give it your full attention. Driving a car takes priority.
In the meantime, just enjoy the journey.
---
Copyright @ 2009, Catherine E. White, permission is granted for this article to be redistributed and shared with others in its entirety as long as links and attribution are maintained.
Catherine E. White is president of Llamagraphics, Inc., developer of Life Balance™ software for Mac OS X, Windows, Palm OS and iPhone. Life Balance provides a structure for your goals, projects and tasks that is priority driven, so you can to make better decisions about how to use your discretionary time. To learn more, please visit http://www.llamagraphics.com/
