Texting while driving is an addiction that requires counseling and conditioning, mental health specialists have said.
Health experts, who consider it an underlying psychological problem, were quoted by Gulf News as saying that the distraction that occurs due to answering phone calls, looking at notifications on the phone and texting impairs cognitive behavior that may lead to fatal accidents.
Dr. Mary John, clinical psychologist, Dubai, reportedly said that this new millennium addiction was worse than drink driving.
“Texting requires both your hands off wheel and is extremely dangerous. I would say any kind of phone engagement, while a driver’s focus in required on the road, impacts the reflexes. Especially when a person is having an emotional moment, there is extreme distraction which causes momentary blindness and impairs judgement. To that extent even when drivers talk on hands-free, it is dangerous and must be absolutely avoided,” John was quoted as saying.
John added that people who usually indulged in texting while driving belonged to a clear impulsive personality type who thought nothing of taking this kind of risk that endangered their lives. “People should realize that apart from risking their own lives they are putting many others on the road at risk. Such people do not realize that they break lane discipline, slow down and sometimes jump red lights and provide further provocation for road rage.”
Dr. Padma Raju Varry, consultant psychiatrist at the NMC Speciality Hospital in Abu Dhabi, said people who feel the absolute need to look at every notification and cannot resist the urge to answer it right then have a great fear of missing out on things.
Varry felt that the need stemmed from this fear that many people had of being neglected in social media groups.
“When a message pops up on an individual’s phone screen, he wants to give an immediate response because that makes him feel included in his peer group and deeply appreciated when he gets a response. This becomes a need that provokes him to be unmindful of his own priority which is to be alert on the road and keep his hands on the wheel,” she reportedly said.
Varry feels many people think as nothing had happened to them while texting and driving in the past, they can continue doing this. “There is no point learning painfully after a major accident. It is important that people realize this as an electronic addiction and seek help,” Gulf News quoted Varry as advising.
