This would be a great feature on mobile phones

Some people like to say they can walk and chew gum at the same time. But can they really? Almost every day I walk through the streets of London (or any other major city) I encounter someone ahead of me blocking the road because they are so incredibly important people that they are inundated with texts that have to be answered immediately or they are the world’s most important social media influencers who have to watch every TikTok video and instantaneously react to it. You know who I mean. The people walking the world in their ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’-postures with their eyes glued to their phones.

You may even be one of them.

If you are, here is my humble suggestion: Get off the phone while walking. You are blocking other people like me who have to go places.

Besides, texting while walking is dangerous and useless anyway. Paulo Pelicioni and his colleagues invited young adults (and it had to be young adults because they are the main bloody culprits) to participate in a lab experiment where they were asked to walk along a 10m path while texting. The path had little tiles stuck on it that directed the length of the steps in order to simulate the true walking speed and posture of pedestrians in a city. The trick: In some instances, the fifth tile was loose and made the walkers slip. If you want to see how the experiment looked like, watch this short video; it ends with the wonderful disclaimer: “No students were harmed in this experiment”.

The two key results are shown below. First, on the left we see that texts typed while walking were less accurate and had more mistakes in them than text typed while sitting down. Hence, people who walk and text make a bad impression on others who receive their texts and have to read jumbled sentences. Second, on the right we see that whether people stumbled or not, walking speed is significantly reduced when texting compared to normal walking speed. Hence, people who walk and text become an active roadblock to the rest of society.

Walking speed and texting accuracy while walking and texting

Source: Pelicioni et al. (2023)

Walking and texting is a supremely egotistical and antisocial activity. But karma will get people who walk and text because obviously, people who do so are more likely to slip and fall than people who pay attention.

Now, I would call slipping and falling when you are walking and texting just dessert, but the researchers think this is a public health concern. So, they suggest that one may want to introduce a new feature in smartphones. Similar to touchscreens in modern cars where certain apps are disabled when the car is moving in order not to distract the driver, they suggest phones should be disabled for texting, watching videos etc. if the phone detects walking movements. If only they would do that. Where is excessive government regulation when you really need it?