Can you hear me now? Rapturous Retards and Multitasking Murderers

Slate has a good article on cell phone zombies. They are an annoyance in all facets of life, but when they get behind the wheel, I prefer to think of them as Multitasking Murderers, people whose blithe disregard of other people's lives and the lives of other people's families, supported by a billion dollar telecommunications socialization program, overshadows the fact that they are merely idiots, and should get them jail time.

Here are some choice passages from William Saletan's excellent piece:

The problem is that physically, you're still living in that environment. Like other creatures, you've evolved to function in the natural world, one setting at a time. Nature has never tested a species's ability to function in two worlds at once.

Now that test is underway.

...

So how is this multitasking experiment going? Not so well. In the Nationwide survey, 45 percent of Americans said they've been hit or nearly hit by a driver on a cell phone. Studies show that the more tasks you dump on drivers—listening, evaluating, answering questions—the worse they perform. They drift off course, miss cues, overlook hazards, and react slowly. In brain scans, you can see the shift of blood flow from spatial-management to language-processing areas. It's the picture of a mind being sucked from one world into another.

...

Today, we're so enslaved to mobile devices that we rely on them even to translate the physical world. Misled by with Global Positioning System devices, people are driving cars into rivers, trees, and sand piles. Twice this year in Bedford Hills, N.Y., drivers have caused train crashes by steering onto the track because their GPS mistook it for a road. Warning signs, pavement markings, and reflective train-signal masts failed to stop them. They trusted the dashboard, not the windshield.

...



The real danger comes from being mentally sucked out of your world while operating thousands of pounds of metal at high speed. Only five states prohibit driving while holding a phone, and if you're an adult with a hands-free phone, no legislator is even proposing to mess with you. That has to change, because research shows that even with a hands-free device, talking on a phone can impair driving skills more than intoxication does. If you need to talk to your spouse or boss, go right ahead—but first, pull over. You're free to visit the other world. Just don't leave your car moving in this one.



another asshole, at perhaps a pivotal moment in the collapse of western civilization?


and another! Anyone can be a douche!

Signs of Intelligent Life Found

In an article titled "Cell phones bane to today's society," evidence there are at least two sane people left. Here's an eloquent comment posted on the article:

Posted by dellaroux at 12:57AM on Sunday, 10/5/08

Self-induced autism is the new national disease. Cellphones create a cotton-wool, internally focused microcosmos in which the speaker is at the performative center, speaking loudly so we'll all know he's got one. Ipods mean I can't point out the rainbow in the sky to passersby because they can't hear me. The young man this evening who sat on his heels with his feet in the seats of the subway stayed there, even when it was pointed out that it would make the seat dirty for the next user. Human consideration is elusive and growing rarer. Germany and France banned cell phone use in cars almost at once. But we have lobbyists to stand in the way of sane legislation and let them be used because of their commercial value. Your right to yell in your cell phone starts where my ear begins. And drivers of public conveyances, whose riders and passers-by are now suffering for their use, threaten more than themselves. They need to admit their limits and live within them.