Distracted: A Philosophy of Cars and Phones

Applying insights from philosophy and cognitive science to address the urgent issue of smartphone-induced distracted driving

Although the dangers of texting while driving are widely known, many people resist the idea that phone usage will impair their driving. And connectivity features in new cars have only made using technology behind the wheel more tempting. What will it take to change people's minds and behavior? Robert Rosenberger contends that a better understanding of why this combination of technologies is so dangerous could effectively adjust both habits and laws.

Rosenberger brings together ideas from philosophy and cognitive science to leverage a postphenomenological perspective that reveals how our smartphones make us such bad drivers. Reviewing decades of empirical studies in cognitive science, he shows that we have developed habits of perception regarding our compulsive technology use--habits that may wrest our attention away from the road.

Distracted develops innovative concepts for understanding technology-related habits and the ways that our relationships to our devices influence how we perceive the world. In turn, these ideas can help drivers be more cognizant of the effect that smartphone usage has on their perceptions, better inform efforts to enact stricter regulations, and help us all to be more reflective about the technologies that shape our lives.

Robert Rosenberger is associate professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and president of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. He is author of Callous Objects: Designs against the Homeless (Minnesota, 2017), editor of The Critical Ihde, and coeditor of Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human-Technology Relations and Postphenomenology and Imaging: How to Read Technology.