Helpful or Frustrating?

So let's be honest. Who here texts and drives? Anybody? Bueller?

Well I definitely used to. Granted, I had a phone that had keys on the front. So because my fingers knew the feel of each key, I could literally text a long message with one hand, and not even look at my phone. I loved it. I would read the messages that people would send back to me while at a stop sign or stop light.

Now that I have a phone that has a touch screen on the front and a keyboard, texting with one hand is hopeless, and I definitely would never text with my keyboard while driving (unlike many people I know.) The crazy part is that so many people text and drive. Recently here in Indiana, a law has been passed making it illegal to text and drive; if caught, the fine is $500.00. This was enforced after statistics were shown that 25 percent of crashes are caused because of people texting and driving.

With such a high percentage of crashes being caused by texting and driving, Sprint decided to step in to help make highways safer. According to an article in my Google Reader called, "Sprint App Disables Phones While Driving," by Sara Yin, Sprint has made an app that parents can install on either one or all of their phones, and make it so that a phone is automatically disabled if going up to the speed of 10mph. The idea of it is actually quite brilliant; especially when you think about how many new drivers think they know everything about driving when they first start, and go ahead and text and drive. "The app determines how fast your car is going by using GPS and cell tower triangulation." If your car is detected at going more than 10mph, it automatically locks the phone. All incoming calls go to voicemail, all incoming texts are automatically responded to, and the app silences all audible notifications. As soon as a person stops driving, the phone is reactivated. If a person tries to override the lock (which they can), a notification is sent to the person who enabled the lock in the first place. 


This seems like a great app; especially for parents to install on their kids' phones. There are a few interesting points in which I would like to find out more about, though. The first one would be, how would the phone know if you're a passenger or not? It would be very frustrating to have to keep unlocking your phone, and then telling your mom or dad that you did it just because you were a passenger. Another point would be to find out if the phone can tell the difference between being in a car, or say running or biking. Not that many people can text while doing those things, but I've seen enough people doing it to know that it's possible. I feel as if this could be a great app, but I would have to have answers to my questions before fully deciding what I really think of it. What do you think about it?? Also, just as a tip if you do check out the article that writes about it, the video was the most helpful for me to understand the whole thing. 

Lost Abilities

On Friday morning at 3:00am, my alarm clock went off. The consistent blaring just kept yelling at me to get myself up and get moving. My reason for having to get up, was that I had to drive my boyfriend, Ken,  to the Indianapolis airport in order for him to catch his 6 o'clock plane departure.

Now I've driven to Indy many times, but that doesn't mean that I know my way around when it comes to the heavy traffic and sudden divisions in the road. Normally I am all ready to go with either printed out Google map directions or a Tomtom, but this time I had neither; more importantly, I didn't have a printer to print out directions. Our on the way journey wasn't going to be scary at all, because Ken had a smartphone that had a GPS on it. For my lonely trek back though, I had my regular phone without any directions or any sort of GPS system at all. Realizing this at 3:00am can be a major stress attack. I was tired, and if i just tried to use some sort of map that might be in my car's trunk, then I was most likely going to get myself lost into some abyss within Indianapolis or beyond. After my major freak out, I ran to my housemate's room, and woke her up, begging to use her smartphone as my homebound GPS. She of course allowed me to borrow it, and she is the reason I am not wondering the distant traffic waters in a far far away land right now.

With my lovely Friday morning explained, I am drawn to a major affect that technology will most likely have on our new generation; people will most likely lose the ability to read maps. Personally, I feel as if I am pretty decent at reading maps. I took a Geography class, and our teacher found it extremely important for all of us students to be able to completely understand how to read and follow a map. Will that be the same for our future generation though? My guess is most likely not. I may not be the most credible person to state this, but I feel the teaching of how to use maps will be discontinued and replaced by how to use a GPS or Tomtom. It may still be taught to particular people who have an eagerness to learn how to correctly read a map, but other than those people, it is doubtful that teenagers will continued to be taught.

Take in mind that I have no idea how this might affect our future, or even if it would affect our future, but I just find it interesting and daunting that maps' actual use will be discontinued. Wouldn't it be bad to not have the ability to read a simple map? I guess researchers and our future will be the only way to truly tell....