668. Do Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny Have Blood on Their Hands?

As one researcher told us: “We’ve engineered a world where the most distracting device ever made is also the one we use to listen to music in the car." A new study tries to measure the cost.

• SOURCES:

• Bapu Jena (hcp.hms.harvard.edu/people/anupam-b-jena), economist, physician, and professor at Harvard Medical School.

• Chris Worsham (hcp.hms.harvard.edu/people/christopher-worsham), pulmonary and critical-care physician at Mass General Hospital, health-policy and public-health researcher at Harvard Medical School.

• Vishal Patel (linkedin.com/in/vishal-patel-md-mph-3641b6158), surgery resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital, researcher at Harvard Medical School.

• RESOURCES:

• "Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities (nber.org/papers/w34866)," by Vishal Patel, Christopher Worsham, Michael Liu, and Bapu Jena (NBER, 2026).

• Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health (amzn.to/3NNLuxk), by Anupam Jena and Christopher Worsham (2023).

• "Mortality and treatment patterns among patients hospitalized with acute cardiovascular conditions during dates of national cardiology meetings (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25531231)," by Bapu Jena, Vinay Prasad, Dana Goldman, and John Romley (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015).

• "Road Crash Fatalities on US Income Tax Days (jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1148…)," by Donald Redelmeier and Christopher Yarnell (JAMA, 2012).

• "Memories of colonoscopy: a randomized trial (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12855328)," by Donald Redelmeier, Joel Katz, and Daniel Kahneman (PAIN, 2003).

• EXTRAS:

• "Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia? (freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-there-so-much-…)" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).

• "Why Is Flying Safer Than Driving? (freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-flying-safer-t…)" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

• "Why Is the U.S. So Good at Killing Pedestrians? (freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-the-u-s-so-goo…)" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

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