REAL LIFE NEWS: TEXTERS CHANGE THEIR WALK
by Hazed
We’ve all seen the videos of idiots who walk along while texting on their phones, and fall down holes. Now researchers have discovered that people change the way they walk when they are sending texts, presumably in an attempt to avoid such humiliation.
Matthew Timmis from Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford, Essex, got the idea for the research when he observed someone walking erratically while using their phone.
The team fitted 21 participants with a head-mounted eye tracker and motion-analysis sensors. The subjects were asked to walk around a course of 5.6 metres, where they had to negotiate an obstacle and a step.
Each participant went around the course three times without a phone, three times while writing a text message, again reading a text message and finally three times making a phone call.
The results showed that people took longer to complete the circuit when fiddling with their phones. They also didn’t look at the step as much, and changed how they walked. The subjects adopted “an increasingly cautious stepping strategy” when using the phone. They also deviated from walking a straight path more often.
All three of the phone-related tasks showed this effect but it was most pronounced when they were writing a text message while walking – they took 11% longer to complete the course than when they were not using a phone.
When it came to the step, those using the phone shortened their strides and lifted their feet higher. “That is very much the hallmark of what we term a ‘safety strategy’,” said Timmis. The strategy, he added, reduced the cognitive burden on the working memory, freeing up resources for engaging with a phone – with more resources needing for texting than making a call.
This coping strategy doesn’t stop people who text while walking from having accidents. Timmis explained, “The big risk here is suddenly-appearing hazards [like] a pedestrian suddenly walking in front of you. You are not going to be able to respond to that as efficiently, which increases the risk of injury.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/30/texting-on-a-mobile-phone-makes-you-walk-sillily-study-finds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2ViNJFZC8
