A Deadly Wandering

A nervous 26-year-old Reggie Shaw lies on a medical bed, ready to enter an MRI machine.

Reggie grew up in a Mormon household, dreaming of his future Mormon mission and of playing college basketball. But his life’s trajectory changed on a rainy morning in September 2006, when he got into a car accident on a mountain pass, leaving James Furfaro and Keith O’Dell dead and a number of questions unanswered.

The case attracted the attention of one determined Utah State trooper who was convinced that Reggie had been distracted by his cell phone. Another person who became interested in the case was Terryl Warner, a victims’ advocate with a past that gave her a sense of empathy for trauma victims.

The case also stirred up a flurry of scientific studies and opinions, at the heart of which was the relationship between technology and the human brain.

Attention scientists have discovered that while technology can serve “deep social cravings and needs” (3), the way it presents information can overload our attention. Ever more powerful computers and ever more populated networks place such demands on human attention that we’ve grown attached to the idea that we can successfully multitask, focusing well on several different stimuli.