Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Cell phones...help us or hurt us?

I feel cell phones both help us and hurt us in the world today. Cell phones are the best way to get in touch with people and stay connected. They are very helpful to us in cases when there is a car accident, you can dial 911 quickly, when you are lost you can call someone to give you directions without having to stop. Cell phones really are great for when you are on the move because you don't have to have a land line to get ahold of someone. Cell phones hurt us when people are texting and driving because they are usually more focused on their conversation and not on the road in front of them. Talking on your cell phone and driving can also be very dangerous but I feel it is much better to talk than to text. Even though when you are talking you maybe more concentrated on your conversation your eyes will still be on the road and what is going on around you and not on the phone while your typing out a text, but either way talking or texting on your cell phone is very dangerous while you are driving. So although cell phones are a great way to stay in touch with people at all times even when you are out and about they can be very dangerous because you aren't paying all of your attention to your driving anymore. There is an article on associatedcontent.com titled "How Talking on a Cell Phone Caused My Car Accident". In this article this lady tells us about the car accident she and her husband were in 2 years ago and how they are still in pain and have to rely on pain killers and muscle relaxers everyday in order to get through the day. She and her husband were sitting at a red light waiting for it to change when they were rear ended by a truck. The truck sent their car through 2 lanes of oncoming traffic. There were 2 men in the truck coming back from their landscaping job. The passenger was looking at their book and the driver was on the phone with their boss. The driver told the police officers that he "saw the green turn light and just assumed that the regular lane was green too". That's when he rear ended this woman and her husband. If he hadn't been on his cell phone he would have been paying enough attention to notice that the light was red and the car stopped wasn't moving. I feel like this article is a very good example of how talking on your cell phone can distract you enough to cause a big problem and possibly an accident that could cause someone pain that won't go away. I feel like belief and doubt function to help me see all the aspects of cell phones in the way that there are so many things that can be negative and positive about using cell phones that you can't really have one belief without one doubt that goes along with it. For example the belief of how great cell phones are for getting ahold of people while they are out and about comes with the doubt about how they can cause accidents when people are out and about because they talk on the phone while driving and aren't paying enough attention. In the case of cell phones I do feel that belief is always positive and doubt is always negative because I can't think of anything that I can say to prove it otherwise. Beliefs for me always show the good things about what I'm talking about and the doubt always shows how that belief can be flipped to be a bad thing.

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