Sending text messages from your mobile phone while driving is more dangerous than driving under the influence of liquor or drugs, a study by Britain's Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) revealed.
The reaction times of people texting as they drove fell by 35 percent, while those who had consumed the legal limit of alcohol, or taken cannabis, fell by 21 percent and 12 percent respectively, according to the study. Drivers who are fond of texting were distracted by taking their hands off the wheel to use their phone by trying to read small text on the phone display and by thinking about how to write their message.
Surprisingly though, we are not number one on this folly. We are a poor third behind the U.S. and Britain. Could this be due to lack of incidence of this kind reported or documented? It could be so. It could also be due to the fact that we had learned our lessons faster than other countries. Still another probability is that the apprehending ‘authorities’ don’t really mind the cause of traffic accidents most of the time.
Well, the good thing is we (Filipinos) have graduated from one flair to another. From texting to the internet mania. But what about it? The internet offers a lot of buzz in friendster, facebook, myspace, hi5, blogging, etc. or the so-called ‘internetworking’ (short for internet social networking).
In Universal McCann’s study on social media, the Philippines had the highest penetration of social networking among Internet users at 83.1 percent, compared with the global average of 57.5 percent. This is quite high, which means that we are getting further into becoming the most internet savvy. Of course, being savvy is one thing and being the most number of users is another.
The Philippines also had the second highest incidence of blog-reading among Internet users at 90.3 percent. South Korea topped the blog readership list at 92.1 percent. The global average is 72.8 percent.
All over the world, including the Philippines and South Korea, personal blogs or diary blogs are the favorite reading fare.
About 65.8 percent of Filipino Internet users write blogs, compared with China which topped the survey at 70.3 percent. Globally, 44.8 percent of Internet users blog, mostly about themselves.
No country can possibly beat China in terms of number of internet users given its 2 billion plus population. And coming in next is amazing if not mind-boggling.
It must be noted, though, that Internet penetration in the Philippines was relatively low—around 15 percent—compared to cell phone penetration of more than 60 percent – which means there’s definitely a lot of room for growth in the internet business in the country.
Still, Universal McCann said its study indicated that blogs and social networks were becoming “mainstream” media and were a valid platform for spreading information.
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