As you might imagine, this has many of an iApple fanboi persuasion giggling with glee. It also has the media doing a self-congratulatory victory lap because the instigator of all this change was a journalist. In reading Monday's TechBoob column on the subject however I was struck by something that seems (to me) to be important, but that our technical betters are missing.
From the story....
If the FAA Changes its electronics, you can thank a reporter. Dwight Silverman, TechBlog, Chron.com
It was 2011, and I was engrossed in an e-book on my Kindle and kept reading as I boarded a plane heading back to San Francisco. My head down, I bumped into the plane door, then into a passenger. I finally buckled in, continuing to read. Then, just a few pages from the end of the book, I heard it. “Please power down your electronic devices for takeoff.”
The above passage was actually quoted by Dwight from the original piece: Flyers still must turn off devices but it's not clear why. Nick Bilton, NY Times.
Reading Mr. Bilton's account I was struck by two things:
1. Given Mr. Bilton's seemingly unawareness of his surroundings, how much trouble would he cause in the case of a disaster?
2. What a self-absorbed prick.
I understand that there could be no technological restrictions to allowing passengers to use certain electronic devices, all of the available science appears to true this out. My concern is that, by allowing people to continue to be nose-down in their ebooks, or listening to music, could pose a large risk to those trying to exit quickly, or follow flight crew directions, when things go wrong.
It's the exact same principle behind putting up your tray table and bringing your seat to an upright position. This isn't done to ensure you're paying attention, it's done to ensure everyone has an unobstructed exit if need be. I'll give you that only around 5% of the plane is listening to the safety video (I typically tune out after Smiling Jeff gives his pep-talk) but how much are people going to listen to anything if they're bumping into doors and other passengers?
We live in an age of constant connection, where we are 'on call' with our smart phones and social media almost 24/7. Is it so bad to be asked to power them down for 20 minutes while the plane takes off and lands?
Asked another way: Do we now care so little about others that we're unwilling to put that book we're reading (or song we're listening to) on the back burner for a bit so that we can act responsibly in the case of something going wrong?
