Dangerous Design

Sometimes, people take advantage of design that the idea of it being dangerous is overlooked. A design can be in ones lives for so long that they trust it enough to believe nothing can go wrong. This can be seen in cases where one would move into an apartment and trust that the walls are completely harmless, only to find out that asbestos, a cancer causing agent, hides within hallow walls and affect everyone else present in the room. One wouldn't know for sure until they dug behind the walls to check for signs of its presence. But just recently, an interactive design that has been banned and become a state law because of how much of an affect it now has on human safety and now even it's population. The technology of texting, first incorporated into cell phones in 1995, has already been around for about fifteen years, yet just now becoming a concern for automobile drivers.

Texting is a form of communication that acts like one is passing notes to another, or SMS (short messaging system). Although texting might sound ridiculous to some, especially the older generations, it does have it's benefits. For one thing, a person does not have to physically talk to someone to deliver a simple message. Also, it is less of a hassle to deliver a text message than having to call, wait, and hope that the person on the other line isn't too busy to answer the phone. One of the main reasons most people love to text is because its basically exchanging subtle messages to one or more people, and sometimes more than one person at once.

The worst part of texting, though, has become more public just within the past few years. In the June 2009 car section of the New York Times, an article by Richard Chang stated that, “Texting is More Dangerous Than Drunk Driving” (Chang; “Texting is More Dangerous Than Drunk Driving”). Their studies were based on Car and Driver Magazine's experiment with two individuals texting and going through a course, the same way they would text on the road, versus the same two individuals driving through the course intoxicated. After the release of the results, there was no question that the title was revealed to be true. Texting has just recently become a dangerous activity, designed by whoever was involved with the cell phones interactive design, and now slowly taking lives. Texting is the perfect example of a design that has become dangerous.

More in depth information about the Car and Driver Texting While Driving Experiment: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/texting-is-more-dangerous-than-driving-drunk/