Study: One Out Of Three College Students Use Smartphone Apps While Driving

You’ve heard about the dangers of talking on the cell phone while driving. You’ve heard about the dangers of text messaging while driving. Now there’s a new cell phone-related driver distraction: smart phone applications.

While smart phones are getting smarter, drivers are getting more dangerous – especially when it comes to teen drivers who have grown up with internet and mobile technology, According to a new study that will be presented at the upcoming American Psychological Association convention, a significant number of college-aged teens and young adults are using mobile “apps” while driving – and some are even continuing their use of wireless distraction after they have been involved in a traffic accident that involved distracted driving.

The study, which surveyed just under one hundred university students, found that one out of ten used mobile devices, such as Twitter or Facebook, often, very often, or almost always, or always when driving. Another 30 percent of respondents said that they sometimes used apps on their phone when behind the wheel. In some instances, college kids who used apps while driving did not change their behavior even after using mobile apps caused an accident or near-accident.

Cell phone use by drivers is a growing problem – and one that has been even more troubling for teens and young adults who have always had technology in their lives. While older drivers may not feel the need to be connected via the world wide web constantly throughout the day, more and more teens and college students say that communicating online, through apps, and over the cell phone is simply part of their normal lives – and a part of their lives that doesn’t go away when they drive. In fact, a study that was published two years ago found that sixty percent of teens text behind the wheel.

Could using apps be even more dangerous than talking on the phone or texting? Researchers say that although they have not studied the connection between smart phone app use and car accidents, they fear that the time and attention that apps requires is significant and that it is certainly a dangerous driving distraction.