Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

In 2010, no crashes were attributed to people using technology on a plane. None were in 2009. Or 2008, 2007 and so on.

New technologies are often greeted with fear and that is certainly true of a disruptive technology like cellphones. Yet rules that are decades old persist without evidence to support the idea that someone reading an e-book or playing a video game during takeoff or landing is jeopardizing safety. Nevertheless, Les Dorr, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the agency would rather err on the side of caution when it comes to digital devices on planes. The government might be causing more unnecessary interference on planes by asking people to shut their devices down for take-off and landing and then giving them permission to restart all at the same time. According to electrical engineers, when the electronic device starts, electric current passes through every part of the gadget, including GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular radio and microprocessor. It’s the equivalent of waking someone up with a dozen people yelling into bullhorns. As more and more people transition from paper products to digital ones, maybe it’s time to change these rules.