When talking about distraction and cellphone addiction, conversations often center around texting and driving or checking social media sites behind the wheel. When people actively use their phones, they get distracted and they cause accidents.
However, the problem may go far deeper than you realize. One study suggests that just being able to see your cellphone, even if you are not using it, can lead to distraction.
One study gave simple motor skill tasks to 50 college students. In the control group, no cellphones were present and people just concentrated on completing the tasks to the best of their abilities.
In another group, the study leader had a cellphone out, but no one else did. In yet another session, the participants in the study had their own phones out where they could see them.
Again, in no group were the participants actually using their phones. Even so, the study found a marked decline in performance of complex tasks in both the group where people could see the leader’s phone and the group where they could see their own phones.
What does this tell us about having phones in the car? It could be that people are so connected to their phones these days that simply seeing the physical phone itself is enough to make them start thinking about calls, text messages, social media sites and other types of notifications. This can distract them even when the phone itself is silent.
That is certainly concerning, and it could lead to distracted driving accidents. Those who suffer injuries need to know what rights they have to seek financial compensation.
