Alyssa’s AP Blog

The argument that William Saletan made in The Mind-Blackberry Problem was that people should not  be permitted to use cellphones or other electronic devices at all while driving. I defend this argument for many reasons. When multitasking, the human mind can’t concentrate on anything that it is doing but only on concentrating alone. A bunch of my friends text while they drive. It scares me to think that they could get really hurt or even die because they are too stupid to wait five minutes until they get where they are going to text. Saletan talks about being in “cognitive capture” while being on the phone. I have caught myself zoned in on my phone and not on the real world before and can’t imagine being in that state while driving a several ton machine. You might as well fall asleep! A statistic that really caught my attention was hearing that you have less control while driving when you are talking on the phone than smoking a joint. Even with a handsfree earpiece, the concentration is still on the conversation instead of the road. Sure, there are some critical moments when it might be useful to make a call while driving but the cercimstances are so few that I would like for there to be a law against using cell phones while driving a car. Overall, to keep the concentration on the road, everyone needs to just turn off their phones while they are driving so they don’t accidentally end someone’s life.