Smartphone Use While Driving: A Simulator Study

Abstract

Use of a mobile phone while driving impairs driving performance, as shown by previous research. More and more drivers are now able to engage in a broad range of potential activities on their phone, with 'smartphones' now becoming common in the commercial marketplace. Investigating whether there was an effect on driving performance by social networking using a smartphone was the aim of this study. The study participants were twenty-eight young female and male participants who drove a driving simulator through the same test scenario twice: once without distraction and once while using a smartphone to interact with a social networking site. The fact that participants' driving performance was impaired by the concurrent smartphone tasks, and that the smartphone task was also affected by driving, is clearly shown by the results of the experiment.