Thursday, September 9, 2010

Texting not a problem where youth do not drive

Clive Thompson to Texters: Park the Car, Take the Bus | Magazine: "The answer, of course, is public transit. In many parts of the world where texting has become ingrained in daily life — like Japan and Europe — public transit is so plentiful that there hasn’t been a major texting-while-driving crisis. You don’t endanger anyone’s life while quietly tapping out messages during your train ride to work in Tokyo or Berlin.

Rich Ling, a sociologist who studies the culture of texting, grew up near Denver but now lives in Oslo with his family. He told me that Denmark has so many buses and streetcars that teenagers often don’t bother getting their driver’s license until later in life. “My daughter is 18, and she’s only sort of starting to think about driving,” he says. As a result, texting while driving “isn’t as big a deal.”"