Walking While Texting Keeps Pedestrians Off Balance
02/24/2014
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Texting while walking isn't only hazardous to your health, it causes you to make awkward nonsensical movements, too. According to a report published in PLoS ONE, distractions caused by texting and walking put texters and their fellow pedestrians at risk of injury. The results of this first of its kind study ought to give people pause before picking up their cell phone when they have other things going on at the same time.
University of Queensland researcher Siobhan M. Schabrun and other interested scientists investigated the safety issues surrounding texting while walking. So they selected twenty-six healthy young adult males for an experiment wherein they used sophisticated mathematics to measure and monitor the participants' movements.
The participants were instructed to walk in a straight line for approximately eight and a half miles while doing one of three activities:
- walk without using a cell phone
- walk while reading text on a cell phone
- walk while typing text on a cell phone
Each of the participants were told to walk at a comfortable pace while the researchers monitored their movements. And what they observed doesn't bode well for walking texters.
Texting And Walking Don't Mix
It turns out that texting turned out to be a major distraction to the participants. Schabrun noted that people slowed down while using their cell phones. The mere act of reading messages caused men to walk slower than they would have if they weren't using their phones, and texting while walking slowed them down even more.
Basically people weren't very good at texting and walking simultaneously. "Dual-tasking competes for cognitive resources and can lead to prioritisation of one task." the researchers said.
The fact that the men in the study had so much trouble keeping themselves on balance i.e. walking in a straight line while devoting so much attention to their cell phones is an "in your face" to those who trumpet multi-tasking.
The participants weren't strangers to accidents while using their mobile phones. In fact Schabrun et al said that 35% of them previously had accidents while texting on their cell phones.
Moreover, the participants' gaits changed while they walked. Schrabrun and her colleagues said that: "The increased demand associated with manipulating a mobile phone may cause young healthy adults to prioritise movement of the head relative to the trunk at the expense of gait stability." adding that "Changes in gait associated with mobile phone use may undermine functional walking and impact on safety in common pedestrian environments."
In other words, when the participants were texting on their mobile phones, they moved awkwardly and had limited range of motion, which could increase the odds of a collision as well as potential injury to themselves or others.
You have to ask yourself if it's all really worth it.
If nothing else, the Australian study demonstrates that reading and texting on your cell phone will distract you from your surroundings, and make it much easier for you to walk into busy traffic, trip over something or bump into another pedestrian.
Perhaps it would be better to wait until you can find a place to stand still before you read or text messages on your cell phone. It could save you from a lot of embarrassing stumbles and make things safer for your fellow walkers, too.
Always be watchful because we don't know when the Master of the house will return.
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Article Reference
Schabrun SM, van den Hoorn W, Moorcroft A, Greenland C, Hodges PW (2014) Texting and Walking: Strategies for Postural Control and Implications for Safety. PLoS ONE 9(1): e84312. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0084312
"Walking While Texting Keeps Pedestrians Off Balance" copyright © 2014 Living Fit, Healthy and Happy(SM). All Rights Reserved.
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