Study Confirms Texting While Walking can be Dangerous

According to a study by researchers proved we can’t walk straight while texting. If you have a hobby of texting or reading messages while on the road by foot or driving a vehicle, you need to recheck your habits. According to the report in USA Today, a study confirms that texting can make you walk like a robot and drive like a drunk.

Physical Therapist, Ms. Siobhan Schabrun, also the lead author of the study, said that the use of a Phone for texting or reading on the road may influence your ability to walk or drive. This influence may has higher chance when texting than reading message updates. In this fast forwarding world of technology it is hard to stop this while walking, but people should take care of themselves and others who is walking or driving on the road.

It is not always comic to hear about the falling of pedestrians on the road, onto the train tracks and stepping into water fountains. Some of them may become disasters which may cause to their life also. Government also making people aware of these actions to take care by displaying ads at traffic signals and major junctions about texting and reading.

Nowadays we see people handling their mobile phones while walking on the pavements.  Maryland, in the year 2012, a fifteen year old girl was hit by a car and dead while looking at her phone. There is a rise in traffic accident deaths in U.S. pedestrian has been partly attributed to cell phone use. People must avoid texting and reading while on the road, if not must be careful while handling smartphones or any other mobile devices while on pavements. 

Don’t Text while Walking

The study was conducted by Schabrun and her colleagues to notify what exactly what happens when a person is handling a phone affects his or gait. They observed 26 healthy and young people to walk through under a gaze of eight cameras and captured their motions while texting. All of the people are well habituated with texting and not able to walk straight while texting.

The motions of the people while texting by the researchers can put pedestrians at risk by drifting themselves away from their intended path. In a statement by Schabrun, the study results were reported in Plos One scientific journal.