Cell phone zombies

"Last month, 25 people died and 130 were injured in a train crash near Los Angeles. The cause, apparently, was a cell phone. In three hours of work before the crash, one of the engineers received 28 text messages and sent 29 more. He sent his last message 22 seconds before impact, just after passing a signal that would have alerted him to the disaster ahead.

Scientists call this phenomenon "cognitive capture" or "inattention blindness." The mind, captured by the world inside the phone, becomes blind to the world outside it. Millions of people move among us in this half-absent state. Mentally, they're living in another world. It's like the Rapture, except that they've left their bodies behind.

You see them everywhere. The woman alone in the grocery store, a bud in her ear, having an animated conversation with a wall of canned soup. The driver who drifts into your lane while counseling an invisible client. The jogger crossing four lanes of traffic, lost in her iPod. The dad who ignores his kids, living in his BlackBerry the way an alcoholic lives in a bottle."

Reading articles on msn, has become my new favorite way to find blog ideas. This article is really applicable to me, I do EVERYTHING while texting. While I find myself easily dismissing this idea as "something that would never happen to me" because I am just "that good" at texting and driving. It really gets you to think. But while I love what this article says, it in a way sparked another topic idea for me, and that is the idea of bluetooths. Of course that is a better alternative to holding your phone while driving, but does it ever just take you off guard? When you hear someone next to you talking, and there is no one else around, so you assume they are trying to talk to you and you answer, only to find out they are really talking to another person, via bluetooth. I have fallen victim to this many times, and it usually happens at the beginning of the their conversation. You are standing there, and all of the sudden you hear, "Hi, how are you?!!" Of course you would assume it is you they are talking to, and you turn and reply, "Good thanks," only to realize they are off in their own conversation. I hate bluetooths, talk about annoying lol! My car has this "fun" little function of being bluetooth enabled through the speakers in the car. Seems like a good idea, when you are alone in the car. But not so much fun when you are with others, and you are having a conversation through your speakers that EVERYONE can hear. Hence why I turned that function off, it was fun for a while, but annoying in the end.