Latest news with #distraction
New York Times
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
For the Artist Sam Moyer, Inspiration Was Set in Stone
In a world so full of distractions, Sam Moyer's art tricks us into paying close attention. The 42-year-old artist, the subject of two high-profile exhibitions in New York, once stacked dozens of hand-painted glass blocks in the window of a downtown New York art gallery to make it look like a solid red brick facade. From inside, backlighting brought each individual brushstroke into focus, revealing the material's masquerade. A few years earlier, at a gallery show in 2014, she affixed fabric dyed to resemble geological formations to slabs of marble. It was nearly impossible to tell which surface was which without walking right up to the wall. 'I don't want to say it was a gimmick, because it wasn't coming from a place of a gimmick, but it was definitely trying to pull something off,' Moyer, dressed in overalls and a T-shirt, said on a recent afternoon. In the front room of her studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, stone slabs in shades of gray, pearl and peach lean against A frames; it looks more like a granite supply store than an artist's work space. Moyer is a trickster — but a very mild-mannered one. Over the past 18 years, in large-scale installations and modest objects, she has provoked a what's-going-on-there response from the viewer, to 'bring an awareness to the land or the space or the light or your body that you wouldn't have had before,' she said. She first drew the attention of art-world tastemakers in the early 2010s, when she began showing dyed canvases she had made by dragging a piece of fabric the length of a school bus through a field on Long Island and leaving it out to dry. Cropped from the huge swath, the final works evoked rumpled bedsheets, light-dappled surfaces and variegated stone. 'A lot of people said, 'It looks like marble,'' Moyer noted. On a 2013 visit to the Rothko Chapel, the nondenominational temple in Houston created by the Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko, Moyer had a stroke of inspiration. She wrote herself a note: 'Put the marble in the painting.' Moyer learned about creating captivating illusions with light and material on movie sets, where her father was a gaffer on films including 'Risky Business' and 'Groundhog Day.' But unlike a moviemaker, Moyer wanted to draw her viewers' attention to the mechanics behind the illusion, not obscure it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Telegraph
19 hours ago
- General
- Telegraph
Chatting at wheel ‘worse than using phone'
Talking to passengers and daydreaming behind the wheel are bigger causes of driving mistakes that may lead to an accident than using a mobile phone, a survey suggests. The RAC, which commissioned the poll, warned that distractions can have 'catastrophic consequences'. More than three in five (63 per cent) of the 2,691 UK drivers surveyed said they had made mistakes behind the wheel because they were distracted. Of this group, the most common self-reported causes of distraction were talking to other passengers (43 per cent) and thinking about topics unrelated to driving (37 per cent). When respondents were asked what they thought were the most distracting things a driver could do, the most common responses were talking on a phone (46 per cent) and applying make-up or shaving (42 per cent). Among those who admitted to making distraction mistakes, just 8 per cent said talking on the phone was the cause, while 2 per cent of drivers blamed shaving or applying make-up. Mistakes included missing a junction, exceeding the speed limit, ending up in the wrong lane or nearly crashing into another road user. Yet almost a quarter (23 per cent) of under-25s said they had been distracted by making phone calls, even though doing so with a handheld device while driving is illegal. More than half (55 per cent) of this age group admitted to breaking the law by doing this. Public wrong about hazard causes Overall, the difference between what drivers believe is distracting and what actually caused a mistake to be made suggests that the public may be wrong about the causes of road safety hazards. Rod Dennis, the RAC road safety spokesman, said: 'Talking to passengers or daydreaming are so common that they aren't perceived by drivers to be big distractions, but our research has revealed they are in fact responsible for most of the errors drivers admit to. 'Although your eyes are on the road, it's easy for your mind to wander behind the wheel, especially on long journeys. 'Distractions can have catastrophic consequences for both drivers themselves and other road users, especially in extreme instances like failing to stop at a junction or at a red light or crossing. 'Driving is still a very mentally demanding task, especially as we need to be able to react to what's in front in a split-second, so it's important we do everything we can to stay alert and minimise distractions.' Almost one in five (18 per cent) of younger motorists aged 17 to 24 said they had become distracted after eating or drinking while driving. Similarly, just over one in 10 of the same age group said vaping or smoking behind the wheel had led to them taking their minds off the road. Interacting with modern touchscreen systems to control functions such as heating, radio and navigation aids also lead to drivers making mistakes, with 26 per cent of the full survey sample saying this happened to them. Safety over convenience Separate Department for Transport (DfT) figures show 940 people were killed or seriously injured in crashes on Britain's roads in 2023 where a driver was found to be distracted by something within their vehicle. Campaigners have long sought to crack down on the use of mobile phones while driving because of their potential to distract motorists from the road ahead. Yet the message of safety over convenience has yet to fully sink in. Earlier this year, rapper Stormzy was banned from driving for nine months after an undercover police officer caught him using a phone behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce in west London. Manchester City player Erling Haaland was reportedly caught scrolling on his phone while stopped in traffic last September. Doing so behind the wheel still counts as using a handheld device while driving, even when the vehicle is stationary. Similarly, rail minister Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill was reported to police after he was caught doing the same thing in April while behind the wheel of his vintage Routemaster bus, which he was driving during a charity event.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Automotive
- Daily Mail
Two thirds of motorists have made mistakes because they're distracted - but the main cause ISN'T their phone
Almost two thirds of motorists admit they've made mistakes while driving because they've been distracted... but the culprit isn't their phone or car's flashy dashboard screens. While road safety groups have raised major concerns about drivers refusing to put down their smartphones despite the threat of £200 fines and six penalty points, and many diverting their eyes to large, convoluted touchscreens, the biggest distraction is not technology but human. A recent poll of 2,691 UK drivers found that talking to passengers (43 per cent) and daydreaming (37 per cent) are the biggest triggers of distraction. The RAC, which commissioned the survey, has warned this could have 'catastrophic consequences' as it is causing unnecessary errors that puts other road users at risk. Some 63 per cent of the panel admitted making mistakes due having their attention diverted away from the task of driving for one reason or another. And while not the biggest cause, tech is having a part to play in driver errors; interacting with modern touchscreen systems to control functions such as heating, radio and navigation has resulted in a quarter of motorists driving poorly. Mistakes triggered by distraction included missing a junction, exceeding the speed limit, ending up in the wrong lane and nearly crashing into another road user. When all respondents to the survey were asked what they consider distracting, the most common response is talking on a phone (46 per cent). The second most common distraction drivers listed is either applying make-up or shaving (42 per cent). However, among those who admitted to making distracted mistakes, just 8 per cent and 2 per cent of drivers respectively said those were the causes. Separate Department for Transport (DfT) figures show 940 people were killed or seriously injured in crashes on Britain's roads in 2023 where a driver was found to be distracted by something within their vehicle. Rod Dennis, RAC road safety spokeman, said: 'Talking to passengers or daydreaming are so common that they aren't perceived by drivers to be big distractions, but our research has revealed they are in fact responsible for most of the errors drivers admit to. 'Although your eyes are on the road, it's easy for your mind to wander behind the wheel, especially on long journeys. 'Distractions can have catastrophic consequences for both drivers themselves and other road users, especially in extreme instances like failing to stop at a junction or at a red light or crossing. 'Driving is still a very mentally demanding task, especially as we need to be able to react to what's in front in a split-second, so it's important we do everything we can to stay alert and minimise distractions.' IAM RoadSmart director of policy and standards Nicholas Lyes believes it is paramount for ministers to updated road safety strategy recognises the importance of improving driving standards overall. 'In vehicle distractions play a huge part in taking minds away from the driving task ahead,' he said. 'We all lead busy lives but being in charge of more than a tonne of metal travelling at speed comes with massive responsibility and it only takes seconds for things to go tragically wrong.' Distraction impact on road traffic collisions According to the most recently available Department for Transport figures, in 2023 there were 1,624 deaths on Britain's roads. Of these, 23 fatalities listed mobile phone use as a contributory factor. In fact, distraction and impairment were cited in 34.9% of all fatal collisions. Only speed (57.7%) and behaviour or inexperience (46.8%) were more common contributory factors in deadly road traffic accidents. Last month, we revealed that nine in ten motorists admit they cannot complete a car journey without being distracted by their phone. This is despite the threat of fines and points on a licence and the increased likelihood of being caught by new roadside camera technology. Just 10 per cent are able to go from start to finish on a trip without using their device in some way or another, analysis of driving data collated from a sample of half a million motorists over the last 12 months and shared exclusively with This is Money revealed. With more than 42million licence holders, it suggests 37.8million are being distracted by their phones behind the wheel. The analysis, carried out by telematics firm IMS, raises yet more alarm bells about technology's impact on road safety. Some 23 deaths on the road in 2023 were either entirely or partly caused by a driver being on the phone. And the development of more advanced and larger touchscreen in new cars is only increasing the risk of driver's taking their eyes off the road. Infotainment in the latest models, which has seen models fitted with enormous TV-like displays on the dashboard, are now a major distraction concern. With growing fears drivers are preoccupied by fiddly touchscreen systems, a study recently named and shamed the brands with the most difficult and convoluted to operate. It found that it can take up to 22 seconds to complete simple tasks on the move - time where a driver isn't entirely concentrated on the road ahead. It comes as manufacturers from next year are threatened with having safety ratings for their vehicles downgraded if simple functions in the cabin are not operated using buttons and instead require motorists to prod through various screen menus.
Vogue
2 days ago
- General
- Vogue
How We All Lost Our Focus—And How to Get It Back
It happened because I wasn't paying attention. Or rather, I was paying attention to too many things, which is the equivalent of heeding nothing at all: the baby on the counter; my seven-year-old 'washing' dirty dishes at the kitchen sink; the oven, which was slow to heat; the narrowing after-dinner homework window for my fifth grader's history project; the Slack notification that flashed above the recipe I was reading on my phone; and which institution was NPR reporting that Trump had just dismantled? Shouldn't I drop everything and tune into that? These were, ostensibly, my nonworking hours, but I was white-knuckling through them: Those collard greens that had been languishing in the fridge, they were going to get chopped and cooked tonight. Or maybe not, because a moment later, I was holding a dish towel tight to my hand after my knife slipped. I'd sliced the tip of my finger right off. An emergency has a way of cutting out the noise, but to a lesser extent we are all teetering on this edge, the mind pulled in so many directions it can feel as though control has vanished from our grasp. And the research tells us we are heading one way: progressively, irrefutably, whittling away how long we can focus. In 2003, before smartphones were really on the scene, the average time a person spent on any one computer-related task before switching screens was two and a half minutes. Between 2016 and 2020, that interval fell to 47 seconds. How low can it go? Five seconds? One? What even is a task in the era of the scroll, that smooth and aimless motion? Art follows culture, or vice versa: The average shot in a movie in 1930 was 12 seconds; by 2010, it was less than four. As an editor and writer I like to think I'm a focused person, professionally trained to pay close attention. And yet, I feel the pull of my phone when I'm sitting down with a novel, when I'm on a walk in the woods, when I'm trying to fly a kite with my kids. The other day, in an Uber, I watched, horrified, as the driver flicked through TikTok at a stoplight, but then, behind the wheel later that afternoon, I found myself checking my own emails in the sliver of time before the light turned from red to green. This isn't just a problem because of the potential for accidents—though mistakes can be consequential even if you're not wielding a kitchen knife or driving a car. Doctors, pilots—they're just as distracted as the rest of us. Studies have shown that multitasking physicians make more errors when writing prescriptions, as do pilots when they're interrupted. There is also what researchers call '[switch cost]( 'switch cost' is the,navigating in an unfamiliar city.)': the fact that we're less efficient at any task when we alternate between them. And then there's the fact that the constant toggle doesn't feel very good. To take just one physiological marker: Our blood pressure rises when we're pulled in multiple directions. There's a philosophical way to think about this, elegantly outlined in The Sirens' Call, a book from MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes published earlier this year: 'The defining experience of the attention age is a…feeling that our very interior life, the direction of our thoughts, is being taken against our will,' Hayes writes. Basically, we are what we notice, and as we notice less—or are coerced or cajoled into noticing less by what amounts to a thousand marketing pings—we are fundamentally reduced. As William James put it in 1890: 'My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind—without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.' Utter chaos—that resonates as a headline floating above my domestic tableau. And it's worse for those who shoulder the bulk of household work, who are disproportionately subject to 'the psychic equivalent of smartphone notifications,' says Allison Daminger, author of the forthcoming book What's on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life. She means those mental pings—We're low on milk. Isn't summer camp sign-up coming soon? Has our car registration expired?—one can't switch off. But hope is not lost! For if we live in an era in which attention is fractured and commodified, we also live in an era in which people are beginning to bristle against unwelcome impositions. And as Hayes puts it: 'It's one of the axioms of American capitalism that where there is consumer demand, there will soon be businesses to serve it.' Spas like the renowned Lanserhof in Tegernsee, Germany, now offer 'brain health' programs that function not only 'in the context of disease prevention,' says Lanserhof's Stefan Lorenzl, a neurologist and palliative care physician, 'but also in helping individuals achieve better resilience and attention in everyday life.' At the SHA wellness clinics in Mexico and Spain, cognitive and emotional health programs are in part geared toward helping guests manage daily distractions. Kamalaya Koh Samui, the Thai wellness retreat, recently opened a 'cognitive house' that offers everything from a high-tech electroencephalogram (or EEG) to sound therapy designed to encourage restful sleep. I pay a visit to the Aman spa in New York City, where a treatment utilizes marma-point therapy (an Ayurvedic technique similar to acupressure). A skilled therapist named Lauren explains that the treatment is as much about energy work as traditional massage, an approach that manifests in a surprising choreography of touch: light strokes around the base of the big toe, a pointed pressure along the inseam of my bicep, hot stones in the cradle of the belly. 'You have a lot of warmth emanating from the top of your head,' Lauren says, 'a lot of positive energy.' I left feeling good, the deep groove between my brows a bit less brutal. I also stop by Lift, a minimalist, brick-walled flotation-therapy spot in Brooklyn, where an extremely zen attendant shows me to a giant egg-like pod containing 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts dissolved in 250 gallons of body-temp water in which I will be semi-submerged for an hour. 'What happens if I…don't like it?' I tentatively ask. 'You're required to stay,' he deadpans, then sensing my alarm, quickly switches tack: 'Nothing is mandatory!' He tells me, though, that he rarely has people emerge before their allotted time is up. First time for anything, I think to myself as I step into the saline waters. And then something happens: As I'm bobbing gently side to side, my mind clicks into a slower gear, the thoughts coming and going without their usual urgency; the minutes melt away, and when the automated message informs me that my session has finished, I am genuinely surprised. I emerge with the sensation that I've just done a satisfying round of yoga despite the fact I've barely moved.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
I fell for a classic tourist scam in Greece — and I didn't realize until it was too late
It happened in the blink of an eye — and I never even saw him touch my phone. I was sitting at an outdoor restaurant in Athens on a sweltering July afternoon. My husband had just gotten up to go the bathroom, so I was alone at the table. A man approached the table with a tourist map in hand, gesturing and mumbling something about... what? Possibly a tour? Who knows. He was persistent and aggressive, and he kept pointing to the map, trying to get my attention. I knew I didn't want any part of it — whatever it was — and kept trying to wave him away. But I knew something was off. He was wearing long sleeves on an absolutely scorching day, and that struck me as odd — but not alarming enough to make a scene. When he finally wandered off, I felt a wave of relief that my bag with my passport was still tucked under my arms safely in my lap. But then it hit me: my iPhone had been sitting right on the table — and now it was gone. He'd used the map as a distraction and cover, likely sweeping my phone underneath while I was focused on keeping my valuables close. By the time I realized what had happened, he had disappeared into the crowd. I've traveled extensively, and I like to think I'm pretty cautious, but this scam worked because it played on a simple moment of distraction. And according to local authorities, it's incredibly common, especially in tourist-heavy cities. Since then, I've completely changed how I carry my phone while traveling. I now rely on a wearable phone lanyard that keeps my device physically attached to me at all times. And I affix AirTags to just about everything when I travel — from my passport to my luggage, and even my kids. If you're traveling this summer, especially in busy European cities, take my advice: keep your phone off the table, wear your bag crossbody-style, and if someone seems unusually eager to show you a map... trust your gut and guard your gear.
