"Oh, I'm very good at multi-tasking!"

[Metryq]

I love it:

Belgium Makes Teens Text And Drive During License Test
http://www.geekologie.com/2012/05/be...rive-durin.php

[HareBrain]

There was a feature on the local (south of England) news a few days ago that said half of under-25 drivers admitted to texting (or accessing Facebook etc) whilst driving. Terrifying. I knew someone on another forum, a cyclist, who was killed by some **** who was doing that.

[hopewrites]

I will agree it is impossible now, and people die on both sides of the wheel when the bounds of this impossibility are pushed. But humans are super adaptable and in the far future we may well develop the skills, phones, and cars to make this a safer reality.

[Metryq]

Originally Posted by hopewrites

But humans are super adaptable and in the far future we may well develop the skills, phones, and cars to make this a safer reality.

Cars will become fully automated, or transportation will take a new form, long before we change that much. Humans simply do not multi-task, and the interval of time to mentally "shift gears" is far too long when traveling even at urban speeds.

Perhaps you've seen the studies showing a hands-free cell phone call—when the driver's eyes are on the road—presents a significant degradation in driving performance due to distraction? People play the radio while driving and talk to passengers. However, it is possible to intermittently "zone out" a radio, as well as passengers, or passengers also react to what is going on in the road. Many people cannot ignore a ringing phone. In the same way, people have "adapted" to focus on who they are talking to on the phone—it becomes a priority even over driving. And that is the problem.

(My roommate typically holds the TV remote and often "forgets" to mute the sound when ads come on. At those times, I can actually see his brain slow down as he tries to talk while "fending off" noise designed to be distracting—his speech slows down and there are pregnant gaps between words. Meanwhile, I'm struggling to listen to what he is saying. When I get irritated enough, I lean over and snatch the remote and mute the sound. Suddenly, my roommate's speech is fluid again. Some people are aware when they are being distracted and do something about it. Others stubbornly try to bull through it—it's as though they don't have any brain cycles left over even to note, "Hey, I'm unfocused.")

[hopewrites]

while i agree that modern humans dont multitask as well as we would like to, I must speculate that we do it better then our ancestors did. and I think that increasing devotion to mass media is speeding the nessity to adapt for those devotees.
nessity is the mother of adaptation.

[Gary Compton]

Originally Posted by hopewrites

the nessity to adapt for those devotees.
nessity is the mother of adaptation.

Read all about it, spellchecker suffers mental breakdown in Washington DC

[hopewrites]

not in DC how many s's should there be?

[Gary Compton]

Originally Posted by hopewrites

not in DC how many s's should there be?

Necessity = something that is essential, especially a basic requirement.

Sorry for being a geek. Going to bed it's 1.48 AM

[hopewrites]

night

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by Metryq

Cars will become fully automated...

...and so when the impact comes, the seatbelt opens and the airbag disengages, you can blame it all on one type of Windows as you fly through another....

[Hex]

I see people doing this a lot around the school next to my son's nursery. It makes me... well, the polite way to say it would be: incandescent with rage.

Last Christmas one of them knocked over the lollipop man -- he went straight over the top of the car (but luckily he wasn't killed).

[j. d. worthington]

Actually, about a year or two ago (if memory serves) there were some studies done on the subject of "multi-tasking", and the results showed the entire concept to be a dismal failure. It is very much an idea promoted (for obvious reasons) by businesses, especially in regard to employees and "efficiency", as well as an attractive one given the pace of modern life, but the upshot is that efficiency actually drops exponentially the more one attempts to multi-task. That certain individuals may be able to do so has not been ruled out, but humans in general simply don't.

[Vertigo]

We can do a certain amount of multi-tasking by using different sides of our brains for different tasks. However some task are hardwired to a particular side, for example the left side of the brain controlling the right hand etc. Women multi-task better than men, and that's not just an old wife's tale; women can move certain tasks from one side of the brain to the other, whilst men are less able to do this switching of sides.

I have seen it sjpeculated that in evolution it was important for women to monitor babies whilst still doing their other tasks. Whereas men, when hunting potentially dangerous game, had to focus with no distractions and so favoured single tasking.

[anivid]

- yes and the truncus corpus callosum, the thick wall between the left and right hemispere, actually is much thicker in males, causing them to be bit slower - (no not in the uptake, well sometimes may be :-)
- but to change between the two hemispheres - to change subject so to speak :-)

[Vertigo]

Ah I didn't know that but it certainly fits; me at least - one thing at a time please...