http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndEvents/archiv es/2006/Mobile !ife "outh #eport.

htm

http://www.scils.rut$ers.edu/ci/cmcs/publications/books/200%/the&20mobile &20connectioin.htm

http://www.uark.edu/rd vcad/urel/publications/in'uir(/200%/)6*%.htm

+ell,-hone,Ethno$raph(:,.inal,/raft Since the mid-1800s, societies have tried to communicate in faster, more efficient ways. It began with notes sent by horseback and messenger, followed by the visual telegraph. n the onset of the invention of electricity came the electrical telegraph ! the

first electrical means of communication. Immediately, the world became a smaller place "no #r. $ovata, the world did not actually shrink%. ver the past &00 years,

communication technology has progressed leaps and bounds, including the ingenious 'mobile cavalry telephone( "http)**www.deadmedia.org*notes*&+*&+&.html%. Invention

begat invention leading up to the 1,80s when wireless communication became popular through the use of pagers. $ike most technology, the beeper and early cell phones were first embraced by the business class and government. -s the technology advanced and became cheaper to produce, the ma.ority of society began to e/ploit it. 0ost technology before the pager soon became obsolete and the cell phone revolution commenced.

Segue to the mid 1,,0s1. 2ell phones prices dropped and rate plans dropped from dollars to cents per minute ! from the anomaly to the norm. 3oday cell phones litter society, such as, workplaces, schools, restaurants and places of leisure. -s college students, the aspect of this new technology that affects us the most is in schools, most of all, the classroom. 3he

ob.ective of this cell phone ethnography was to research the use of cell phones on the college campus and in the classroom. 4e hypothesi5ed that the ma.ority of students on campus own and * or used cell phones while on the 6orty -cres, and that this usage has become somewhat of a necessary evil. 0ainly because it is a nuisance in class while serving an arguable purpose) an instant means of communication. 4e collected data by surveying students at random on the 4est 0all, in the 3e/as 7nion and via e-mail. total of fifty-seven complete surveys were collected as a result of this sampling. 4hen we first selected the group members, we threw around lots of ideas, including monitoring cell phone usage on the 4est 0all by students entering and e/iting buildings. 4e also discussed comparing beeper usage from the past decade to cell phone usage of today. In the end we narrowed our field of research to student usage on campus and responses from professors to said usage. 3he student surveys consisted of four yes or no 8uestions and two open response 8uestions. 3he 8uestions were as follows) 1. #o you own a cell phone9 :es * ;o )) If yes, for how long9 <<<<<<< &. #o you take it to campus with you9 :es * ;o )) If yes, for how many minutes do you talk on campus per week9 <<<<<<< =. >as your cell phone ever rung in class9 :es * ;o ?. #o you use it in between classes while on campus9 :es * ;o

In order to successfully conduct this survey on the 4est 0all "a.k.a.) stop trying to hand me meaningless pieces of paper land%, we were forced to invest in tasty morsels consisting of 0ilky 4ays@ and Snickers@ and use them as bribe material. In many cases, our survey wasnAt interpreted correctly or filled out completely. 3his forced us to invalid a few of the responses. Because the survey was taken on a highly populated and locali5ed part of campus we were able to sample a various and accurate portion of the student body. 6or e/ample, a little over half of the students surveyed were females. 3his gender ratio is very similar to the gender makeup of the student body at 73. 2asual observation also correlated with the data. 4hile waiting for fifteen minutes for fellow group members to arrive, ten females were seen talking on their cell phones while walking on campus. In comparison, in the same time frame no males were seen talking on cell phones. ut of the valid surveys that we collected, eighty percent of the surveyed students own a cell phone. Cemarkably, all of the said surveyed students take said cell phones to said campus.

-s can be seen in the preceding graph, over three 8uarters of the students surveyed use their cell phones in between classes and while on campus. 4e have seen the affects of cell phones on campus and in class on a first hand basis. ;one of the group members have ever been in a class where a cell phone did not disrupt a lecture. 6rom the data we collected, we found that appro/imately forty-one percent of the surveyed students have had their cell phone ring during a class. Cemarkably, more than half of the surveyed students that have owned their cell phone for more than two years have allowed it to ring in class. 3his data is alarming, but coincides with our original hypothesis that cell phones have become a disturbance in the classroom. 3o bring in an outside opinion, group members interviewed their professors from current and past semesters on the sub.ect of cell phones in the classroom. 3he general consensus of the professors was that cell phones have become a definite disruption in the classroom. >owever, the level of

disruption is inversely proportional to the si5e of the class itself. 0eaning, that in larger, less intimate classroom settings, cell phone disruption is almost e/pected by the professors and students, and is usually an accompaniment to all of the other commotion. 4hereas, in smaller classes, with more student*professor interaction, a cell phone is more noticed and usually causes some form of interference in the task at hand.

-lthough the level of disturbance in larger classes is significantly smaller, some professors that teach these larger classes react more harshly to cell phones going off. 6or e/ample, one professor that all but one of the group members have had, who will remain anonymous, goes to the e/treme of planting a 3- in the class on the first day to prove her point about cell phones ringing in class. n the other end of the spectrum"scale%, most

professors simply make an announcement about cell phones at the beginning of the semester or in their syllabus. n the average, professors have noticed that cell phones

have become more of a problem in .ust the last three or four years. Before the cell phone

cra5e, no other form of mobile communication was as intrusive"disturbing% in the classroom. Dven the popularity of pagers and two-way paging devices never boomed in the way cell phones have. Some professors go so far as to pride themselves on their ability to 'sniff out( vibrating cell phones as well as cell phones that ring in their classes. 6rom the data we collected, most of the students that talk on their cell phones while on campus, average between fifty and seventy minutes per week. 3his hardly seems to necessitate the need for constant communicating abilities since most rate plans are on the average of 1000 to &000 minutes per month. 3his is somewhat of a parado/ since we are not necessarily a busier society than before five years ago when cell phones were uncommon. It seems that society is using this technology only because it is available, not because it is necessary. Society has put forth the feeling that instant and direct

communication is necessary, and without it, there is somewhat of a invalid. Dven a short in class discussion by #r. $ovata showed that most of us felt incomplete without our cell phones on our persons at all times. ne of the variables researched by the group was the length of ownership of the personsA cell phone. 3he range of ownership was as low as three months and as high as fifty-one months. ver eighty-five percent of the surveyed students have owned their

cell phone for more than one year. >owever, this doesnAt coincide with the age of the students. 6or e/ample, one female test sub.ect e/plained that she had owned her cell phone for four years and yet she was only a freshman at 73. 3his further proves that the growth of cell phone popularity is hitting younger people as well as college age people. 0any high schools have even started regulating cell phone use at school even going so far as banning bringing cell phones to school at all. 3his also paralleled the use of pagers

when all of the group members were in high school. 3he average length of time of ownership is appro/imately twenty-si/ months. >owever, more than a 8uarter of the students have owned a cell phone for over three years. -lthough our data doesnAt show it, we believe that that ma.ority of university students purchased their cell phones after arriving at the university, and not when they were living at home attending high school. 3he goal of this study was to e/amine the use of cell phones on campus. 4e e/amined how the use of cell phones has increased over the past few years, how cell phones fit into everyday life on campus, and how cell phones affect the classroom. survey for students included 8uestions about general usage. ur

It was short but very

effective "mainly because of our bribing incentive%. Dach member of the group also conducted small interviews with faculty about cell phones. -fter calculating all of the data, our personal hypotheses and in class observations proved similar to the actual amount of cell phone use on campus. 3he amount of students that allow their cell phones to ring in class that we observed simply by going to class is proportional to the actual amount of surveyed students that allow this to happen. ur original hypothesis was that

cell phone usage has become a nuisance on campus and that most of the student body owned a cell phone. ur data clearly that this hypothesis is correct and that the amount

of cell phone use of campus is very high

Cell Phones Can Detract From School Safety & Crisis Preparedness 1. 2. 3. 4. Cell phones have been used for calling in bomb threats to schools and, in many communities, cell calls cannot be traced by public safety officials. Student use of cell phones could potentially blow up a real bomb if one is actually on campus. Cell phone use by students can hamper rumor control and, in doing so, disrupt and delay effective public safety personnel response. Cell phone use by students can impede public safety response by accelerating parental response to the scene of an emergency during times when officials may be attempting to evacuate students to another site.

5.

Cell phone systems typically overload during a real ma or crisis !as they did during the Columbine tragedy, "#C attac$s, etc.%, and usage by a large number of students at once could add to the overload and $noc$ out cell phone systems &uic$er than may normally occur. Since cell phones may be a bac$up communications tool for school administrators and crisis teams, widespread student use in a crisis could thus eliminate crisis team emergency communications tools in a very short period of critical time.

'ational School Safety and Security Services has received a number of in&uiries after the school shootings of recent years as$ing if schools should allow and(or encourage students to carry cell phones and pagers in school as a tool for their safety during a potential crisis. Similar in&uiries have been received after the September 2))1 terrorist attac$s on *merica. "e have opposed policies allowing or encouraging students to have cell phones and pagers in school. +n a day,to,day basis, they are disruptive to the educational environment. #his also has been the general position of many school districts over the years. Changing policies under the guise of cell phones being a crisis tool for student safety is, in our opinion, a $nee, er$ reaction and is not -the answer- to school crisis preparedness that some may believe it to be. Some schools banned pagers and cell phones starting a decade ago because of their connection to drug and gang activity, as well as due to the disruption to classes. #he focus on their disruption of the educational process has come into conflict with cell phones becoming a convenience items over recent years. .owever, parents have increasingly lobbied boards to change policies primarily based on the argument that phones will ma$e students and schools safer in light of national tragedies. "e do agree that the use of such devices is more for convenience purposes today than it may have been 1) or more years ago. /ut while some boards and(or administrators prefer to -cave in- and change policies ,,, primarily to avoid parental pressures and school,community politics ,,, we still generally advise them not to do so. 0rom an educational perspective, cell phones primary present another disruption to the educational environment on a day,to,day basis. School disruptions can come in a number of forms. 1inging cell phones can disrupt classes and distract students who should be paying attention to their lessons at hand. #e2t message has been used for cheating. *nd new cell phones with cameras could be used to ta$e photos of e2ams, ta$e pictures of students changing clothes in gym loc$er areas, and so on. 3n terms of school safety, cell phones have been used by students in a number of cases nationwide for calling in bomb threats to schools. 3n far too many cases, these threats have been difficult or impossible to trace since they have been made by cell phones. #he use of cell phones by students during a bomb threat, and specifically in the presence of an actual e2plosive device, also presents a greater ris$ for potentially detonating the device as public safety officials typically advise school officials not to use cell phones, two, way radios, or similar communications devices during such threats. *dditionally, e2perience in crisis management has shown us that regular school telephone systems become overloaded with calls in times of a crisis. "hile we do recommend cell phones for school administrators and crisis team members as a crisis management resource tool, it is highly probable that hundreds !if not thousands% of students rushing to use their cell phones in a crisis would also overload the cell phone system and render it useless. #herefore the use of cell phones by students could conceivably decrease, not increase, school safety during a crisis.

School officials should maintain an ade&uate number of cell phones on campus for administrators, crisis team members, and other appropriate adults. School and safety officials should see$ to provide such e&uipment as a part of their crisis planning. *dditionally, while not necessarily advocating that schools provide cell phones to teachers, we do believe that school policies should allow teachers and support staff to carry their cell phones if they choose to do so. "hile a number of schools have loo$ed at this issue, and some have reversed their past positions of prohibiting cells phone in schools, we find that the ma ority of schools have not umped on the bandwagon and it is not the big trend that some may believe it to be based upon a number of anecdotal cases. 3n fact, the 2))2 '*S1+ national survey of school,based police officers shows that 456 of surveyed school,based police officers from across the nation believe that student use of cell phones in school would detract from school safety in a crisis and another 1)6 believe they would have neither a positive or negative influence. 516 of school resource officers indicated that their schools continue to not allow students to use cell phones in school, supporting our observations that the ma ority of schools have not reversed their prohibition of student use of cell phones in schools. .owever, if school boards want to bend to parental pressures and allow students to carry cell phones for convenience purposes, and if school administrators support such practices due to the difficulties associated with being the -cell phone police- in their schools, this is fine. /ut when doing so, they should all ac$nowledge that convenience and public pressure, not school safety, are the real reasons typically driving such decisions.

Stephen Students at *dlai 8. S .igh School in suburb are allowed to use the ... sometimes.

High school limits student cell phone use

73'C+7'S.318, 3ll. !*9% : #hey finish their e2ams, step outside and pull out their cell phones to call for a ride ho

-9ut them away; 9ut them away;- an administrator shouts as a half,do<en students &uic$ly turn off their phones an them in their bac$pac$s and poc$ets.

Cell phones are now allowed at *dlai 8. Stevenson .igh School in suburban Chicago and a growing number of sch nationwide : but only sometimes. Some students complain the rules on phones and pagers, while better than an o ban, don=t always ma$e sense.

*t Stevenson, students are allowed to use them only after school finishes at 3?25 p.m. and on wee$ends. #he rest they must $eep them off and out of sight.

-"hat if e2ams finish earlier than that@- as$s 15,year,old Aaren 7evy, who stands outside with a crowd of students go home at 11?15 a.m. -3t=s not really fair.+thers are simply confused by the changes.

-3=m not in trouble, am 3@- sophomore 'eringa 8idimtaite as$s after ma$ing a &uic$ call to her father to as$ for a ride

*dministrators say they have to draw the line somewhere to $eep phones from becoming a distraction. /y rela2ing they say they=re ac$nowledging that cell phones are an everyday part of life.

-3t was $ind of silly,- Stevenson superintendent 1ichard Bu0our says of an old policy that forced school officials to p students who were simply carrying a phone. Colleen Conrad, a senior and president of the student council, was one of those students. She had to spend a day -Saturday school- after she left her purse in the school cafeteria last September, only to have administrators find a in it.

-3=ve never gotten in trouble before,- Conrad says, adding that she was upset, in part, because punishments were n consistent. -Some people got in trouble and others didn=t,- she says.

She li$es the new policy. /ut at least one e2pert believes rela2ed rules are only li$ely to increase dilemmas over wh punish students who use phones during school hours.

-Cou=re legislating chaos. 3t=s a lot easier ust to say, =Bon=t bring them,-= says Aenneth #rump, president of Clevelan 'ational School Safety and Security Services.

Cet safety is a big reason many administrators : from /altimore to Ballas : are reconsidering their ban on cell ph pagers after Sept. 11 and the Columbine school massacre. *dministrators say having a cell phone handy gives stu parents peace of mind. /ut #rump says cell phones aren=t necessarily security enhancers.

.e says that having hundreds of students ma$ing calls at once can actually increase confusion or am up phone lin an emergency. *nd some students may use phones to cause trouble, phoning in bomb threats, for e2ample.

#hen there=s simply the issue of distraction, as students snea$ away to chec$ their voice mail or send te2t message forth via cell phone. 1egardless, legislators in Dichigan and 3ndiana are reconsidering laws that ban cell phones and pagers on school : measures originally aimed at curbing drug,dealing.

/ut other states are holding firm. 7ast month, a 'ew >ersey appellate court upheld the constitutionality of a state la elementary and secondary students from wearing pagers while on school property. Students at Stevenson .igh School say they=ve seen some students brea$ing the new rules : using their phones

bathrooms, for e2ample. /ut they say phones that ring in classrooms more often belong to teachers.

*s long as they=re not using phones and pagers during class, students say they should be trusted to use good udg

-3t=s li$e the 3nternet : they wouldn=t ta$e away access to that,- says Stevenson senior Barren 'asatir. -3 e,mail my from school, and it=s no big deal. "hy should calling them be a big deal@-

0chool,1oard,2ants,3o,1an,+ell,-hones,After,-rincipal,+au$ht,0tran$lin$,0tudent

#ecember &1, &00E 3opics school, phone, student, camera, teachers, schools, images, virginia, clothes, photos, pictures, light, tv and security
An incident caught on a cell phone camera might lead the Caddo School Board to ban cell phone use at schools during the academic day from 7 a.m. until school ends. The idea was born when a student with a cell phone camera took photos of a physical fight between another student and the Huntington High School Principal erry !a"is. According to The Shre"eport Times# the cell phone images caught the media$s attention and school board officials had to put !a"is on paid administrati"e lea"e. %S&A T' () reports that !a"is was accused of choking the student. *n e+plaining that she wasn$t really banning cell phones from schools# School Board ,embers !ottie Bell said that the student who used his cell phone to photograph the incident highlighted the fact that students are misusing their cell phones during school time. -Students are misusing the phone. They are te+ting test answers# they are taking pictures while changing clothes# and sending them to .ou Tube#- Bell said. But the Caddo /ederation of Teachers ob0ects to banning students from using cell phones during school hours. They say that it would re1uire checking the students. Anyway# both teachers and parents say they fa"or students ha"ing the security of cell phones to communicate in light of the massacres at Columbine High School and 'irginia Tech. But school board members say that banning cell phone use would be in line with e+isting school policy that bans use of electronic de"ices during school hours without permission from the principal# The Shre"eport Times reports. *f the student with the cell phone camera had been following that rule# it is doubtful that !a"is would be on lea"e now# because it can be assumed that he wouldn$t ha"e gi"en a student permission to photograph him while he was choking another student.
S370B$D7F ;

Cell Phone Ban Angers Students

b(,Il(a,Arbit,and,/avid,0chmut4er Ma(,2006 n -pril &G, ;ew :ork 2ity police officers set up mobile security scanners at the -corn >igh School for Social Hustice in Brooklyn. 3hey sei5ed 1&, cell phones, 10 2# players, two iFods, a bo/ cutter and a knife. Such searches and the ban on cell phones have prompted protests by high school students across the city. 2ell phones have long been banned in the cityIs public schools, but principals at schools without metal detectors, such as -2 C; >igh School, often ignored the policy, and students got away with carrying cell phones, as long as the phones did not make noise in class. ;ow all students have to obey the rules because of a new #epartment of Dducation security policy. 2ity police officers have started randomly showing up at schools that donIt have metal detectors and using mobile scanners to keep weapons out of the schools, according to a department press release. But the police are also confiscating cell phones,

iFods and other banned electronic devices. If cell phones are sei5ed during a scan at school, school officials decide when to return the phones.

By Hon Jambrell -SS 2I-3D# FCDSS 1&)&= p.m. #ecember &,, &00E -7J7S3-, -rk. ! Cumors spread by cell phone te/t-messaging flew through a school after a studentIs suicide, rumors that other kids planned to kill themselves, that students planned to bring weapons to school, that there was going to be 'a shoot Iem up.( Fanicked parents rushed to take their children home. But police and officials at -ugusta >igh School say the panic turned out to be only a way for students to avoid taking semester-ending e/ams.
Ad"ertisement

'Somebody took advantage of a tragedy that happened in -ugusta, a tragedy of a young man taking his life,( Superintendent Cichard Blevins said. 'Somebody e/ploited that and I guess that made me madder than anything else. Somebody was so insensitive to use that for their own gain.( -n e/isting ban on cell phones at the school will be enforced when the winter break is over. Bomb threats and disruptions have happened before at the &00-student school in -ugusta, in northeastern -rkansas. But police say the proliferation of cellular phones gave electronic-age wings to small-town gossip. '3hereIs rumor mills in this town like you .ust cannot believe, because everyone knows everybody. ;inety percent of people is kinfolks with somebody else,( police 2apt. Him 0oore said. ':ou get a ripple that spreads like a wave.( 2rime is slow in the town of &,=,0 people. Folice on average respond to one reportable call a day. -n evidence-tagged 18-pack of beer still sits on a department desk, labeled as confiscated back in September. 3he rumors started #ec. 1E when officers responding to a call found a 1G-year-old student hanged at his home. $ate the ne/t day, the sheriffIs office received a call from a school official saying some parents were concerned about rumors spreading of threats of a shooting at the school.

n #ec. 1,, a 4ednesday, police and a sheriffIs deputy were at the school as students entered, and school district officials used a handheld metal detector to scan everyone entering the building. 3hey also looked through bags for weapons. '3he only thing we found were cell phones,( Blevins said. -fter the searches, te/t-messaged rumors began circulating in earnest. '3hey .ust said there was going to be a shoot Iem up,( 0oore said. '3hey was supposed to have been a pact and all this kind of stuff ! that there were going to be eight or 10 hang themselves over the holidays.( Fanicked parents headed to the campus, and by 10 a.m. only &+ students remained at the ==+-pupil elementary school. Folice in nearby Searcy called asking if -ugusta police needed help, saying they had a report of a shooting at the school. -mbulances were diverted to the area. Blevins said the panic was initially spread by students who claimed said they had received threatening te/t messages. ' f course, this never happened. ItIs .ust more damn rumors,( 0oore said. 'Dvery kid down there has a cell phone and they .ust .ibber-.abber, .ibber-.abber.( n Han. E, the first school day of the new year, Blevins said, school staff will institute a 5ero-tolerance policy on cellular phones. >e also plans an investigation into who caused the panic and promises to push for e/pulsions. 'ItIs like hollering fire in a crowded theater,( Blevins said. '4e canIt have people doing that.( >owever, 0oore doesnIt believe any criminal charges are likely. 'ItIs all .ust a rumor,( he said. Jraduate students find no match in evening cell phone use spike and crash data By Kathleen 0aclay, 0edia Celations L 1= -ugust &00E BDCKD$D: ! ItIs conventional wisdom that talking on cell phones while driving is risky business, but two 7niversity of 2alifornia, Berkeley, graduate student economists report that a spike in cell phone use in recent years and on weekday evenings is not matched by an increase in fatal or non-fatal car crashes from &00&-&00+. 3heir findings, published on the 4eb site of the -merican Dnterprise Institute-Brookings Hoint 2enter for Cegulatory Studies, run counter to the conclusions of more than 1&+

other studies, E0 percent of -mericans in a &00= Jallup Foll who said drivers on cell phones cause accidents, and the reasoning behind complete or partial bans on using cell phones in at least 1? states. 3he issue is on the agenda in several foreign countries as well. M4e were 8uite shocked,M admitted Saurabh Bhargava, who with co-author Nikram Fathania set out to satisfy a curiosity about drivers who use their cell phones despite the commonly perceived perils. 3he students point to data revealing that the average amount of time a cell phone subscriber spends on calls has surged from 1?0 to E?0 minutes a month since 1,,=. In addition, about ?0 percent of drivers acknowledge using their cell phones at some point while driving, and cell phone ownership is skyrocketing, up from about & percent in 1,,0 to more than E+ percent in &00G. 3he researchers also found - not surprisingly - that calls made .ust after , p.m. on weekdays, the point when off-peak, Mfree minutesM kick in on many cell phone plans, have increased by &0 to =0 percent. In a &00G Few Cesearch Survey, ?? percent of cell phone-using respondents said they wait until after , p.m. on weekdays to make nonurgent calls. Fathania said the .ump in call volume .ust after , p.m. on weekdays should have translated into a .ump in the number of crashes, too. :et, when the 72 Berkeley researchers e/amined the number of fatal vehicular accidents from 1,8E to &00+ in all states, as well the number of all crashes in seven states in roughly the same period, they found the crash rate had remained flat or had fallen. Flus, the crash rate declined steadily over the course of a typical weekday evening, even after , p.m., reflecting a pattern almost unchanged since the early 1,,0s when few people owned cell phones, they say in their report, M#riving 7nder the "2ellular% Influence) 3he $ink Between 2ell Fhone 7se and Nehicle 2rashes.M In what is probably the best-known and widely cited study on accidents and cell phones, researchers at the 7niversity of 3oronto and Stanford 7niversity in 1,,E concluded that using a cell phone while driving increased the odds of an accident four-fold, comparable to driving under the influence of illegal levels of alcohol. So what might e/plain the lack of a link between vehicular mishaps and drivers on their cell phones9 M0aybe drivers arenIt as irrational as we think they are,M said Bhargava. MIn real life, people may be aware of the risks of cell phones, and they may ad.ust their driving behavior.M 3he researchers said drivers on cell phones may move into slower traffic lanes, increase the distance between their cars and others, or pull over to the side of the road to talk.

3hey may also MsubstituteM across sources of risk by talking on the phone instead of, for e/ample, fiddling with the radio or conversing with a fellow passenger. 0aybe cell phone use helps to keep some drivers, such as long-distance truckers, awake and alert, Bhargava and Fathania said. 3hey also theori5ed that cell phone use is more problematic when driving in poor weather conditions or for drivers in certain demographic groups, such as teenagers. Bhargava and Fathania compared trends in cell phone ownership and crashes over time, sought out possible differences in urban versus rural crash rates related to varying rates of cell phone ownership in those regions, and estimated the impacts of laws restricting cell phone use. M;one of the additional analyses produces evidence for a positive link between cellular use and vehicular crashes,M they concluded. 3he economists donIt dispute that using cell phones while driving can be dangerous. Bhargava conducted his own personal e/periment, talking on his cell phone while driving in 0innesota this summer. -cknowledging that he doesnIt often drive, much less drive and talk on the cell phone at the same time, Bhargava said he almost crashed twice on that trip. M ur research should not be viewed as an endorsement to use cell phones in a negligent way,M he said. MIt certainly may be risky for a marginal user.M Fathania added another cautionary note) MSince we know that certain demographic groups such as teenagers fre8uently call and te/t while driving, and that they are also risky, ine/perienced drivers, further research is needed in this area. $aws banning cell phone use in cars for such groups may well have some merit.M 72 Berkeley economist #avid 2ard said the researchersI study supersedes e/isting ones and uses Mmore reliable methods that cleverly overcome the problem of making inferences about the Icausal effectsI of cell phone use by focusing on the surge in use at the time when rates fall.M 3he report is online at) http)**www.aei-brookings