IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2013 - 39

BofA's Customer Service contact
information to find a listing of
banks, unless they can locate one
physically or have access to other
directory services.
To compensate for the time now
having to be spent in front of a computer daily in order to handle the
computerized admin tasks of daily
life, and to potentially keep up with
civic matters, some adults may be
trying to compress their time into
a "just-in-time" communications
model, where they contact and call
others during transition times or
while they wait for people, things
or services in the physical world.
The data enabled mobile phone
supports this behavior by providing
communications on the go in a way
that was previously restricted to the
physically tethered access of a telephone land line.

Geolocomotion and
Divided Attention
we use the term "Geolocomotion"
to describe the way that people navigate through space using the capabilities of geospatial technologies
to monitor and control movement
in context [18]. These communications continue to increase due to the
rapid popularity of Social Media,
geolocative apps and the combination of people wanting to attempt to
do more than one thing at one time.
People act via their own personal
frame, or collectively in one of the
communities they are a member of,
while concurrently breaking social
boundary and marking rules in
other communities they are a part
of, which in turn influences those
around them in these other communities to adapt their behavior.
One of the more visible
instances of this has to do with
communal behavior on public
streets. Often, drivers are talking
or texting (illegally in many areas)
while they are operating their
vehicles. In many neighborhoods,
people have adapted to these drivers by waiting longer to cross the
street when lights change, to avoid

being hit by a distracted driver.
In the 2001 Strayer study, it was
found that people having cell
phone conversations were found
to be more likely to miss traffic
signals, and/or react to signals
more slowly when engaged in a
cell phone conversation [4]. when
talking hands-free, there were
similar inabilities [19].
Conversely, on sidewalks, if
someone is talking on a phone while
walking, or geolocomoting, others
have learned to move out of their
way and treat them as an obstacle.
One study showed that cell phone
usage may cause an "inattentional
blindness" even during an activity
such as walking [20]. The study
found that individuals while talking on a cell phone "experienced
more difficulty navigating through
a complex environment ... walked
slower, weaved more often, and
made more direction changes."
Added up, these form a profile that
illustrates that those sharing the
sidewalk with cell phone users are
wise to move out of their way.
"Divided Attention" as a concept is not new, having been written
about even as early as 1850 [21]. In
his text, "Elements of Intellectual
Philosophy," Hubbard winslow
devotes a portion of his chapter on
Secondary Knowledge to the subject of attention and memory, giving the example of:

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

Professor Fisher of Yale College who was so absorbed in
some scientific investigation,
that on the ringing of the bell
for dinner, he left his room,
went to the dining-hall, took
his official position, invoked
the benediction, presided
and ate his meal as usual
and returned to his studies,
without having afterwards
the least recollection of anything that had taken place.
Towards night he had solved
his problem, and bethought
himself of dinner. On looking at his watch, he was
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wINTEr 2013

surprised to find the time
for dining had gone by several hours. Alarmed at his
official neglect, he went to
an adjoining room to inquire
who resided in his absence,
and was yet more surprised
on learning that he had presided himself [21, p. 197].
At first, winslow discusses
divided attention in a positive way,
noticing that "men sometimes attend
to two or three subjects at the same
time" and that "A violinist will play
one part and sing another." ... winslow contends that movement, in
the case of a musician playing while
conversing, must be produced by
the performer's "volitions" because
habit does not explain motivation
or purpose. He continues that if the
performer has mastered the instrument, and was more interested in
the conversation than the piece they
were playing, the instrument would
be an afterthought-unless when
something went wrong.
If we apply this analysis to our
cell phone talking community
member, we can see a parallel; our
citizen's passion and interest may be
on the conversation and less on the
walking or driving (the "automatic"
habit). They can concentrate (at
least in their own minds) on the former, driving/walking and talking
on the phone, or geolocomoting-
until something goes wrong that
forces them to acknowledge the
latter. Telegraph operators using
Morse code, eventually adapted to
being able to decipher messages
aurally by listening to the clicks
of the telegraph, rather than reading messages and translating them
visually [22, p. 65]. Unfortunately,
there is little evidence of helpful
adaptation yet with cell phones
aside from other people looking
more carefully before they cross
the street if they perceive a driver
to be using a mobile phone, or moving out of the way of those similarly engaged when walking on the
sidewalk. So-called "hands free"
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2013