Psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris had an interesting editorial in The Wall Street Journal this weekend asking, “Do Our Gadgets Really Threaten Planes?” They conducted an online survey of 492 American adults who have flown in the past year and found that “40% said they did not turn their phones off completely during takeoff and landing on their most recent flight; more than 7% left their phones on, with the Wi-Fi and cellular communications functions active. And 2% pulled a full Baldwin, actively using their phones when they weren’t supposed to.”
Despite the widespread prevalence of such law-breaking activity, planes aren’t falling from the sky and yet the Federal Aviation Administration continues to enforce the rule prohibiting the use of digital gadgets during certain times during flight. “Why has the regulation remained in force for so long despite the lack of solid evidence to support it?” Simons and Chabris ask. They note:
Human minds are notoriously overzealous “cause detectors.” When two events occur close in time, and one plausibly might have caused the other, we tend to assume it did. There is no reason to doubt the anecdotes told by airline personnel about glitches that have occurred on flights when they also have discovered someone illicitly using a device. But when thinking about these anecdotes, we don’t consider that glitches also occur in the absence of illicit gadget use. More important, we don’t consider how often gadgets have been in use when flights have been completed without a hitch. Our survey strongly suggests that there are multiple gadget violators on almost every flight.
That’s all certain true, but what actually motivated this ban — and has ensured its continuation despite a lack of evidence it is needed to diminish technological risk — is the precautionary principle. As the authors correct note:
Fear is a powerful motivator, and precaution is a natural response. Regulators are loath to make policies less restrictive, out of a justifiable concern for passenger safety. It is easy to visualize the horrific consequences should a phone cause a plane to crash, so the FAA imposes this inconvenience as a precaution.
Once a restriction is in place, though, removing it becomes a challenge because every day without a gadget-induced accident cements our belief that the status quo is right and justified. Unfortunately, this logic is little better than that of Homer Simpson, who organized an elaborate Bear Patrol in the city of Springfield and exulted in the absence of bear sightings that ensued.
This is a prime example of the precautionary principle in action. In my recent 80-page paper entitled, “Technopanics, Threat Inflation, and the Danger of an Information Technology Precautionary Principle.” I noted that how we might be witnessing the rise of a “precautionary principle” for some information technology policy matters. The adoption of an information precautionary principle would restrict progress in this arena until technology creators or proponents can demonstrate new tools are perfectly safe. That’s essentially what the FAA has done with its ban on digital gadgets during certain times of air travel.
Of course, it is easier to sympathize with the precautionary perspective in this case than others because the risks of digital gadgetry and wireless communications during flight really were unknown early on, and few wanted to conduct a real-time experiment when the potential downsides were so catastrophic. And yet, as Simons and Chabris observe, we’ve conducted that experiment anyway! Air travelers decided to ignore the ban and continue to use digital gadgets. And, luckily, the sky didn’t fall, or in this case planes didn’t fall out of the sky, at least.
What’s amazing about this case, however, is that the FAA has continued to enforce its precautionary-minded regulation long after it’s been shown to be needed and has been so widely ignored anyway. I suppose that, like Homer Simpson, some of these officials believe that their precautionary steps have led to greater safety, or don’t have any costs or trade-offs and, therefore, there’s nothing wrong with their “better to be safe than sorry” thinking. Of course, that’s the fatal flaw in all precautionary principle thinking, as I note in my paper. There most certainly are many costs and trade-offs associated with banning technology or its use. They may not be as profound in this case as in others, but that doesn’t mean that they do not exist.
Regardless, now that the FAA has finally decided to take a second look at their policy, perhaps they be willing to admit that there never really was much sense to this particular application of the precautionary principle and that the time has come to end this ban and let individual airlines experiment with different approaches.