The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction

by Matthew B. Crawford

The negative affordances that a motorcyclist sees aren’t limited to things like oily spots on the pavement. The road is, after all, a social place. You do well to notice the brunette in the short skirt standing at the intersection, because the guy driving the car in front of you may slam on the brakes. But the old lady following closely in the car behind you won’t. You have been watching the old lady with interest. As far as you can make out in your vibrating mirror, she has a look of sour disapproval on her face, and it is directed at your taillight. You also notice the driver of the delivery truck that has just appeared at a side street. He appears to be laughing: he is engaged in a conversation with someone else in the cab of the truck, seated on the side opposite to the side that you are approaching from. The driver looks like just the slovenly sort who would pull out without double-checking. (Motorcyclists become ethnographers of necessity, or rather rank stereotypers, for the same reason that cops do: they face risk. Stereotyping is efficient for snap judgments.)