Phone addiction is a thing, and it’s bigger than you think. It’s not just that awkward friend who speaks (texts) in emoji and can’t have real conversations. It’s widespread, bordering on social crisis. Here’s why you should care: people who can’t put their phones down actually drive more. That is, they spend 150% more time on the road and drive 760% more miles than the average U.S. driver. Phone addicts as a percentage of the driving population grew over 42% in the last year, from 4.6% to 8%.
There’s no avoiding them, and not only because they’re growing in numbers. Whereas 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. is the known window to watch for drunk drivers, phone addicts are on the road and significantly impaired 24-7.
These are just some of the disquieting findings in Zendrive’s latest study. The San Francisco- and Bangalore-based company sells a driving analytics developer platform for smartphone-based mobility services. Clients include children’s safety-focused ride service HopSkipDrive and gas delivery app Booster.
Zendrive founder and chief executive Jonathan Matus ideated the concept in 2013 to somewhat tame his own monster; press materials note that the Google and Facebook alum “feels partially responsible for creating the phone addiction epidemic at his previous jobs.” At Google he developed turn-by-turn directions and led Android product marketing. At Facebook he managed marketing for the mobile app, finding new ways to keep people focused on their personal networks, rather than immediate surroundings.
In a Monday phone interview, Matus talked about the survey’s findings and what can realistically be done to make roads safer. What’s the prognosis for getting people to hang up or at least pay a little more attention? The ‘Do Not Disturb’ auto-reply text message already exists in both iOS and Android. “There is a question of getting the public more aware, and committed to using this,” Matus said. Put more bluntly, don’t hold your breath.
How about the advent of smart cars? As those vehicles get “smarter” with more open source technology to change in-dash features more frequently, can they compete with smartphones or at least prevent preoccupation with them? “Consumers aren’t categorically interested in putting an application [on their phones] to actively monitor and guide them,” Matus said, explaining why his company launched to focus on fleets and the developers creating the systems for those fleets.
When asked about distracted driving, 85% of consumers acknowledged the problem and 90% self-rated as a safe driver, but only 47% admitted using their devices often enough to be categorized a phone addict.
Zendrive also found that bigger isn’t better. A larger device screen doesn’t offer more visibility to minimize distracted time; it’s actually just more to look at. More screen real estate correlates with more preoccupation on the road.
Another surprise: traffic-riddled San Francisco and Los Angeles weren’t the worst cities for distractions. Texans get that award, with two metropolitan areas, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, at the top of the list and worsening over last year in spite of a partial hand-held phone ban.
The consumer survey sampled 500 people, and the distracted driving study drew data from 1.8 million of Zendrive’s 60 million users over 92 days from November 2018 to January 2019 to conclude that distracted driving is on the rise, as compared to driving patterns it assessed last year.
So if you know you could be safer, or you have a friend you want to nudge in the right direction, what should you do? Navigate to your destination if you must, but turn on the audio and otherwise keep your hands off the phone.
“My advice,” Matus said, “is to really stick to the mount.”
