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Gamers Better at Driving w/ Cell Phones?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the still-deserve-to-be-smacked dept.

sl4shd0rk writes "A lot of people think talking on the cell phone while driving is natural, but each time someone asks a question or changes the subject, it's like taking on a new task, Psychologists who study multi-tasking have argued for years about whether these "information bottlenecks" occur because people are inherently lazy, or because they have a fundamental inability to switch from one task to another. Mei-Ching Lien, an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University. "Even with a seemingly simple task, structural cognitive limitations can prevent you from efficiently switching to a new task." I have to say that the best ones are those who play a lot of video games," she pointed out. "Those are lab studies, however, and not driving tests." " All I know is that I could get where I was going better if I could shoot turtles at others on the highway.

6 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Natural? No. by DikSeaCup · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "A lot of people think talking on the cell phone while driving is natural ..."

    And a lot of people (including many gamers) think it is not natural.

    GET OFF THE PHONE AND DRIVE.

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    I talk about stuff.
    1. Re:Natural? No. by MurphyZero · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Then we should make all cars single passenger vehicles, because I for one am more distracted by passengers talking in the car than by a conversation on a cell phone. For one, the social interaction habits tend to make the driver want to look at the other speaker. A cell phone does not. Likewise, instead of a child seat, maybe a muzzle would provide them better protection. I do have two children, and those two are much greater distractions than any cell phone will ever be.

      --
      Our founding fathers removed the guys in charge. Be American. Vote incumbents out.
  2. No. by bwd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just because you're good with multitasking with your hands doesn't mean you're inherently better than other people at multitasking in a car. With one, there are no consequences for failure. When you're driving a car, serious injury or death is the result of failure.

    It's just this kind of superiority BS by gamers that will get them killed in a car. There's a difference between games and real life.

  3. Driving while talking by quokkapox · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I don't care if you're some kind of whiz-bang gamer, if you are the only person responsible for the safe operation of a huge chunk of fast moving metal, shouldn't you be concentrating overwhelmingly on that task alone? You owe it to the dumb pedestrians out there, who do not deserve to be Darwinized for making a simple mistake that ends up getting them killed because you're paying less attention than you could be.

    Relatedly, and I know this is anecdotal, but I try to conscientiously observe the driver when I see someone make a mistake at an intersection (when it is safe for *me* to do so, such as when I'm already *STOPPED* and some bloody fool runs a stale yellow/red light from the lane next to me.) More often than not, they are talking on a cellphone. Or eating, or drinking.

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    it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
  4. Re:Cell Phones vs. Passenger by Hope+Thelps · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly, how is talking on a cell phone much more distracting than talking to a passenger in your car?

    Because the people in the car with you react to the context you're in. Liking shutting up when you stop paying attention to them rather than saying "are you still there? hello? hello? I can't hear you... hello? are you okay...".

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    To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
  5. But. by TheLink · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The thing is - most of those cases the driver is talking about something fairly related to the situation he needs to concentrate on.

    Not something totally unrelated.

    The cop probably looking at the vehicle he's chasing, describing it, saying where it's going. I'd find that not so hard to do that myself.

    He's not trying to think of whether his girlfriend's maroon skirt (gf: "Not the red one, _maroon_") will go fine with her new top, or whether what he says next will get him in trouble with her...

    As for F1 drivers, they are drivers who are highly coordinated and can probably multitask and drive at highspeeds. At least the top ones should be able to practically drive around tracks in their sleep ;).

    Apparently when the F1 racers were made to race in go-karts years ago, Ayrton Senna apparently was driving whilst tweaking the fuel-air mix on his kart's engine at the same time.

    Rally drivers might even better at these sort of situations.

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