Marshall T Rose
<mrose+mtr(_dot_)netnews(_at_)dbc(_dot_)mtview(_dot_)ca(_dot_)us> writes:
a rationale reason for asking folks to turn the things off is because
the airlines don't want people to be distracted during take-off and
landing, when most things tend to go wrong. if they'd just come out and
say this, most people would probably accept it.
Nope. Way more arguments that way. See, one's own level of distraction
is something that one feels in control of and able to judge, so people can
then immediately disagree with feeling distracted, or just ignore that
instruction since they know *they* won't be distracted.
If you cite some pseudo-scientific justification, however, particularly
one related to safety, most people will swallow it without a question.
If the goal is to get people to obey without questioning, you want to
pretend to be an expert in a topic they know nothing about and won't
disagree with you on. There are *way* more amateur psychologists who
think they understand distraction than there are people who are sure they
know what will and will not affect airplane avionics.
This is one of those areas where being believable is a lot more effective
than being accurate. Don't think of it as a technical issue; think of it
as an exercise in mass psychology.
--
Russ Allbery (rra(_at_)stanford(_dot_)edu)
<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>