Applied Cognitive Psychology recently published a study on one of the newest ways we, as humans, have found of obstructing traffic – walking while texting (WwT). I, myself, have been guilty of WwT, but I’ve recently resolved to curb my “mobile” texting habits because, to be honest, I find the practice incredibly annoying.
Photo Credit: JPott
Adepts of WwT tend to walk slowly and aimlessly, which makes them very hard to pass on the sidewalk. Granted, they mostly just endanger themselves, but their lack of spatial awareness makes them a hazard nonetheless. As you can tell, my feelings on the subject are rather strong, so I was tickled when I read the title of the following study: “Practicing Safe Text: the impact of Texting on Walking Behaviour.”
In this study, the researchers, headed by Dr. Stacy M. Lopresti-Goodman of Marymount University, looked at how walking while texting alters an individual’s own walking behaviour. The researchers found that, on average, people who engaged in WwT were much more cautious than walkers who weren’t texting. Despite this excess in caution, “texters” did not avoid obstacles with more ease than “non-texters.” The scientists concluded that being overly cautious while texting does not decrease the chances of being involved in an accident.
In 2010, The Pew Research Center reported that 17% of adult Americans admit to having bumped into objects while texting. Other studies have shown that walking while using the phone, to carry on a conversation or to text, can lead to unsafe pedestrian behaviours (Stavrinos et al., 2011; Stavrinos et al., 2009).
Photo Credit: Andrew.T@NN
In order to gain insight into the behaviours of those who chose to engage in WwT, the researchers set up a lab experiment in which 25 participants had to walk through a doorway.
Warren and Whang (1987) demonstrated that, when navigating a doorway, an individual will use his or her own shoulder width to assess whether the doorway can be approached head-on. This is referred to as the “passability” of the doorway.
They found that, on average, taller people with wider shoulders rotate their shoulders more often to get through a doorway than shorter people with smaller shoulders. More importantly, they figured out that if a doorway is 130% that of an individual’s shoulder width, then the individual will feel comfortable enough to walk straight through the doorway, regardless of overall body size.
Based on this study, Dr. Lopresti-Goodman’s team expected to find that an individual’s ability to determine if a doorway is large enough to pass through safely would be affected by the distraction created by the act of texting.
They believed that this would lead to an increase in doorway frame collisions compared to participants who were not texting. Alternatively, they hypothesized that participants might overcompensate by being overly cautious, thus rotating their shoulders more often than they would otherwise.
All Participants, of which 22 were women and 3 were men, were assigned to either the texting condition or the non-texting condition. This was done to avoid having the participants think too much about the purpose of the study, which could cause them to adjust their behaviour accordingly.
Each participant, regardless of the condition to which they were assigned, had to walk through 11 doorways of different widths, ranging from 40 to 90 cm, three times while holding a phone with both hands at chest height, for a total of 33 trials per participant.
For those of you wondering, the fact that the sample was largely composed of women should not be cause for alarm, as the vast majority of multi-tasking studies have found that men and women suffer similarly when it comes to performing more than one task at once, regardless of the task at hand.
“Given these findings, I’d speculate that even if we had an equal number of men and woman (which would be hard to get at Marymount since we are 75% female and have very few male psych majors/minors), there wouldn’t be any differences,” explains Lopresti-Goodman.
Lopresti-Goodman et al., 2012
The researchers found that texting participants walked at slower speeds than the non-texters did. In addition, texters did not try to squeeze through doorways that were less than 130% their shoulder width.
On the contrary, participants engaged in WwT rotated their shoulders more often and ended up walking sideways through doorways they could have easily cleared head-on. The researchers concluded that the texters compensated for the distraction that represented the act of texting by increasing their zone of safe passage.
Photo Credit: Travelin’ Librarian
The researchers suggest that, given previous studies’ results in which walkers using mobile phones were found to be involved in more accidents, the adoption of a larger zone of safe passage is not an effective strategy.
When asked about the conclusions of her study, Dr. Lopresti-Goodman explains that most people willingly admit to texting while driving or walking because they believe that they are acting more cautiously than they would otherwise. The statistics, however, tell a different story, says Lopresti-Goodman.
“It is because of the increased risk of accidents that laws have been passes that prohibit drivers from texting,” she says. “I’m not going to say that laws should be passed to prohibit walkers from texting as well, but I do think the public needs to be educated about the dangers of what many think is a harmless habit.”
So, do any of you plan to curb your dangerous texting habits? Personally, I think I’ll stick try to keep my shoulder rotation rates to a minimum.
A note on “Investigate Everything”: This article is part of a new series of science news stories I will be posting on this blog. “Investigate everything” refers to the surprising studies that use a scientific lens to investigate everyday occurrences or actions. The results will vary from the highly unexpected to the utterly predictable, but hopefully you will find them just as entertaining, regardless of the outcome. After all, in order to appreciate the groundbreaking, one should keep abreast of the banal. Hmm, that’s sort of catchy:
“Investigate Everything – Keeping abreast of the Banal”
Lopresti-Goodman, S. M., Rivera, A., & Dressel, C. (2012). Practicing Safe Text: the Impact of Texting on Walking Behavior Appl. Cognit. Psychol. DOI: 10.1002/acp.2846
Other References:
Pew Research Center. (2010b). Mary Madden, Lee Rainie. Pew Internet and American Life Project. Adults and cell phone distractions. Retrieved from: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Cell-Phone-Distractions.aspx
Stavrinos, D., Byington, K. W., & Schwebel, D. C. (2009). Effect of cell phone distraction on pediatric pedestrian injury risk. Pediatrics, 123, e179-e185.
Stavrinos, D., Byington, K. W., & Schwebel, D. C. (2011). Distracted walking: Cell phones increase injury risk for college pedestrians. Journal of Safety Research. doi:10.1016/j.jsr.2011.01.004
Warren, W. H., & Whang, S. (1987). Visual guidance of walking through apertures: Body-scaled information for affordances. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 13(3), 371–383.
This work by Arielle Duhaime-Ross is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
this is very interesting to me considering i walk and text all the time. From my understanding though in psych class we talked about parts of the brain. The Thalamus should take care of and let you know if your in any a=immediate danger so yes while this is a hazard i think its not so much of a danger thanks to your thalamus
It would make sense of why the person is more prone to injuries from bumping into things because they are paying attention to nothing but the text. their so focused on who they are texting that they do not notice whats approching in their prefrieal vision. Not to mention, since they are so focused on that text, the subjects Reticular formation and parts of the occipital lobe dealing with sense of direction and mental distance is temporarly un aware of whats going on around that subject. The thalamus mentioned in the previous comment has nothing to do with which way the person is going and if he/she is going to be aware of their surroundingss. All the thalamus deals with is sensory.
I fount this article interesting because i text and walk all the time. I kind of wish they wouldve did a different study to be more intersting though, but hardly do i ever walk into things
. I think a reason for that is because my thalamus. The thalamus processes motor and sensory information. It kind of tells you that something is there and to watch out! An example my teacher used was about his blind friend. Even though he was blind, his thalamus worked so when he would walk, he would stop if there was a pole in front of him or a set of steps. I sort of relate to this because i always sense something or someone when i am looking down while texting. Thanks psychology!
A lot of people have certainly adapted to walking while texting especially the younger generation, including myself. Although this is an adaptive behavior that can cause some serious issue or harm we have, to a certain extent, almost trained our limbic system to respond well to this. Some people are not very cordinated to perform this task of texting while driving or walking, however some of them are. Not saying that driving while texting would be safe however, the more one does it the more “skilled” they may become at it. We have the ability to learn and for memory for this texting skill thanks to help from our hippocampus. Not to mention furthermore, our thalamus comes into play with our senses as far as objects coming at us, and us reacting to them in time to get away. Something many avid texters may develope in response to this “I almost just ran into a wall.” happening to them many times. Lastly lets not forget the hypothalamus, helping us with our survival, many of times while texting and walking/driving a “HOLY &*%#, I almost just ran into someone or almost just ran off the road!” The point to get to with that is once we experience that fear that our hypothalamus helped us realize we typically will set down the phone for at least a few minutes to get back to reality. Texting while doing anything could be potentially dangerous or harmful but, as technology advances and the world changes we could actually at some point in time be completely communicating with our phone devices so better to train our brain to adapt to it now! Sooner the better! Go Psychology!
I believe that people can text while walk at the same time and be able to not run into things because they are a little more cautious of looking up and down so they do not run into things around or near them. They should be able to do that because the cerebellum should help coordinate their movements, help them balance themselves, and have better posture. Also the reticular formation part in the brain should help regulate the persons attention and alertness. Therefore they should be less likely to run into things around them
I think the bigger picture is being overlooked here … it is that a lot of the youth who practice this behavior have moved their concept of reality from their physical location to that of cyberspace … no longer living in the here and now. It is the here and there. I have to admit that I’m an older technology nerd and I do my share of texting, but I do try to avoid doing it in front of my kids and as I’m walking … there are just too many moments that you’ll miss … a new discovery of the world by your child, a new way to view a common object by your kid, some stranger passing by that wants to catch your eye and start a conversation … I’m not sure how much growing and learning can be done by texting. The interesting psychological studies in the future will be those who analyze how much of the world we miss as we try to stay in touch. It still really breaks my heart when I see two young people out on a date … and one of them continues to check their phone throughout dinner — how is this type of behaviour going to affect our relationships, our development, our society?
I’m assuming you haven’t seen this, or you would have included it -
I must say, I had not seen that video. That video really made me chuckle! I’m sure that’s not what most people are worried about when they are texting and walking, but it’s a great example of the kinds of dangers one can miss when engaging in a text conversation. Thanks for sharing!
[...] the banalities of everyday Western life. So, in my first Investigate Everything post, I wrote about the dangers of walking while texting. And today, I am writing about another strange habit that the human species has managed to pick up: [...]