The dangers of texting and driving are well-known and undisputed. But did you know that texting while walking also presents a number of injury risks?
According to an article in Safety and Health Magazine, a recent study from the University of Florida, Gainesville and Troy University found that people who text while walking may be at an increased risk for injury. Researchers tracked 30 adult participants walking 26 feet across an obstacle-free floor both normally and also while texting and found that, when texting, participants walked with reduced velocity, an increased step width, and a decreased toe clearance, step length, and cadence – all of which can contribute to accidents and injuries. For instance, decreased toe clearance can cause trips and falls, and increased step width can prompt distracted walkers to step on unstable surfaces
or collide with nearby obstacles.
The results of the study appear to be supported by empirical data, as well, with more than 1,500 pedestrians estimated to be treated in emergency rooms in 2010 alone for injuries related to using a cell phone while walking. In fact, the number of such cell phone-related injuries has more than doubled since 2005, despite the fact that the total number of pedestrian injuries decreased during that time.
What’s more, researchers suspect that the actual number of injuries to distracted pedestrians is actually much higher than statistics suggest. Jack Nasar, co-author of a study on distracted walking and professor of city and regional planning at The Ohio State University, has said, “The role of cell phones in distracted driving injuries and deaths gets a lot of attention and rightly so, but we need to also consider the danger cell phone use poses to pedestrians.”
Texting while walking injuries can result from bumping into walls, falling down stairs, tripping over clutter, or stepping into traffic. Research shows that texting pedestrians are nearly four times as likely to exhibit at least one unsafe crossing behavior and taking an additional 1.87 seconds (18.0%) to cross the average intersection compared to undistracted pedestrians.
Despite the dangers of texting while walking, pedestrians continue to ignore the warnings and a recent study found that nearly one-third (29.8%) of all pedestrians performed some sort of distracting activity while crossing the street, including listening to music (11.2%); texting (7.3%); and using a handheld phone (6.2%).
