So a small-ish study came out a little while ago that said that texting while driving was very, very dangerous.
Shocking.
But apparently a real occurence in the world. So, what needs to happen to change that behavior?
I would guess that there are a couple of attitudes at play:
- I know it’s a bad idea, and I never do it (except when I do, and then I feel guilty).
- I know it’s a bad idea, but I only do it once in a while, and I’m very careful.
- I know it’s a bad idea for other people, but I can do it because I’m really good at it.
- Huh? What’s the big deal?
Except for the last, it’s not a knowledge problem, and knowing more about it really won’t change anything. No intervention that talks to the declarative memory is going to change the first three, because it’s not the “know” part but rather the “do” part of the sentence that’s the problem.
e-Learning frequently talks only to the know part, and all to often assumes that will take care of the “do” part as well. That’s where other kinds of things, like serious games get interesting, like this one:
http://www.nytimes.com//interactive/2009/07/19/technology/20090719-driving-game.html
Is it different if you don’t just know, but experience?
There’s no data that accompanies this game, but wouldn’t it be interesting to find out?
Update:
Here’s a link to the kick-to-the-stomach video on this:
http://bit.ly/VklMP
I’m not normally a fan of scare tactics as a behavioral modification strategy (I just think it’s usually a lot more complicated than that), but this one certainly will have emotional impact on its side for promoting memory and retention…