The Role of Informational Medium on Decisions to Respond to a Message

Abstract

The dangers of texting while driving has been clearly reported in distracted driving studies. People generally see texting while driving a dangerous behavior but they do it. A new line of research in the area of driving distraction is concerned with why people do risky behavior such as texting while driving although most people believe it is a dangerous behavior. This study examined the value of responding to a message and factors that may influence the decision making process of people about responding to message. Using the delay discounting method in this study it was examined if information medium of message influences decisions to respond to a message. The results of first experiment showed that there is a quantitatively difference in the shape of the delay discounting function for different informational mediums suggesting discounting for a cell phone text message compared with post-it message and post card message. The results of the second experiment showed the same different shape of delay discounting function for the value of responding to a message depending on the weather condition and response medium of a message in driving condition. People could not wait to respond to a message while driving in a normal weather condition. They also showed inability to wait to respond to a message if it is received through a car in-dash system rather than cellphone. In sum this study showed that people’s decisions to respond to a message is valued differently given informational medium related factors.