Walking while talking

It is no surprise that cell phones are a distraction no matter what your doing. But research shows that it can even be a distraction while simply walking. In a study, they tested the participants by setting up obstacles in the path of the person walking. The null hypothesis was that the student would not become distracted with their phone. The alternative hypothesis was that the student would become distracted by their phone and hit into one of the objects. The study included 60 participants that were university students. All of the students had to fill out a survey asking how much they use their phones, how many hours a day they talk on the phone and other questions to make sure that their sample were all similar. The experimental group received phone calls while they walked through the path while the control group did not receive a call at any point. Five objects were placed along the route. Two were at eye level and three at ground level. The objects were the safety word and danger sign and cans, polystyrene and a shoe. The conclusion of the experiment was that talking on the phone reduces attention to unusual surroundings which then lead to accidents, which was the alternative hypothesis.

distracted-walking

Another study involved pedestrians crossing the street as cars passed by while talking on the phone. The null hypothesis was that the pedestrian would not become distracted while crossing the street. The alternative hypothesis would be that crossing the street would become hard because of the phone call. There were 36 students from the University of Illinois who participated in this experiment. All participants had normal vision and were paid a compensation to do the experiment. The street contained to lanes and the cars passing by were allowed to go anywhere from 45 to 50 mph. During the study the participants from the experimental group would cross an alleyway in between two buildings. The participants in the control group would cross the street without distraction. The success rate decreased from the participants who had no distractions to the ones who were on their phones. The alternative hypothesis was confirmed in this experiment.

Although these studies proved their hypothesis correct, I have a few problems with the study itself. In the study with crossing the street while cars are driving, I do not feel like it is as common to be on your phone as you’re crossing a busy street. Also the street only had two lanes rather than four which would be more common on a street. People are more likely to cross the street using their phones if it only has two lanes, so I would have liked to see variation in the width of the road. In the study with walking on the sidewalk, I think it should have been longer because when I’m using my phone on the sidewalk it is for a long period of time and only after a while do I truly become distracted.

Both of these studies prove that pedestrians are easily distracted by their phones, so why do we constantly use them when doing other activities? Our society today is obsessed with multitasking and constantly doing something. These studies show how you cannot be on your phones while crossing a street or there will be a collision. “Petextrians” is a new slang term used to refer people who cross the street while texting. Walking around campus it can be dangerous because some bikes ride on the sidewalks.

Sources: http://jhrba.com/?page=article&article_id=35431

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457509002681

https://www.protectiveinsurance.com/blog/blog-post/blog/2016/04/21/the-surprising-dangers-of-cell-phone-distractions-distracted-walking

Picture: https://www.protectiveinsurance.com/blog/blog-post/blog/2016/04/21/the-surprising-dangers-of-cell-phone-distractions-distracted-walking

One thought on “Walking while talking

  1. Sabrina Chan

    Interesting blog post! Great use of terms/topics that we learned about in class. I think the studies themselves could have been better (or can be improved in the future) by including a larger pool of participants.

    These articles seem like common sense! If we’re looking at our phones, we’ll obviously be distracted from our surroundings. I wish people would use this common logic when driving. 1/4 of all fatal car crashes are caused by distracted driving via cell phone. https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cause-of-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone-statistics.html What makes people think they are invincible to the statistics? They’ll just be a part of the statistics eventually.

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