Youth perceptions on anti-texting and driving advertisements: an eye-tracking approach

Texting and driving has become a prevalent public health issue, especially in youth. The current study recorded eye movements of young adults to texting and driving prevention advertisements to determine the format that attracted the most attention. Thirty-three participants (Mean age 19) viewed three types of advertisements (non-driving related, general distracted driving and texting and driving specific) with three types of contents (text only, image only and text and image) while their eye movements were recorded. Participants also completed a survey evaluating their self-reported texting and driving behaviours. When comparing eye-tracking results for participants who self-report texting and driving with those who do not, no significant differences were observed. Results revealed an interaction of the types of advertisements and types of content on dwell time. More precisely, when ads comprised text only, participants spent more time viewing the texting and driving ads than the other types. For the texting and driving ads, participants spent more time viewing when they comprised text only and, more time when they comprised image only than both image and text. Regardless of the type of ads, when ads comprised both text and image, participants spent more time viewing the images than the text. Since viewing behaviour did vary whether participants text and drive or not, results do not provide clues to produce more effective ads for the target audience. Nevertheless, results suggest that in order to influence young adult’s attention to texting and driving prevention advertisements, text-only display would be preferable.