Last updated April 12, 2019
It seems that talking and texting are not the only dangers that new or old cell phones are causing on the road, with a new survey suggesting that internet apps downloadable to used cell phones are distracting drivers, particularly students.
The survey, which was carried out recently by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, showed that ten per cent of students out of the 93 who were surveyed admitted to using cell phone applications very often, if not every single time, they were behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. Another 33 per cent of the students confessed to having used cell phone applications while driving on an occasional basis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no less than ten of the students who were surveyed have been involved in motor accidents while using cell phone applications sometime in the preceding five years, while a further three had actually been in more than one such car crash.
“What really stood out was the number of participants who verbally reported understanding that using mobile internet while driving was dangerous, but continued to do it,” notes the researcher of the study, Lauren McCartney. McCartney is intending to present her findings to the American Psychological Convention, which is being held in Washington DC in August. “Something needs to be done because in psychological terms, internet use involves substantive cognitive and visual distraction that exceeds talking or texting, making it much more dangerous,” she says.