NEWS

Texting and Walking?

Happiful
By Happiful,
updated on Aug 10, 2017

Texting and Walking?

Don't, you look really silly

UK researchers from Anglia Ruskin University sound like they’ve been having fun. They recently asked 21 participants to walk along a 5.5m pathway that contained a step-up box designed to trip them up. People walked the pathway a dozen times without their phone, then while talking on their phone, reading a text on their phone, and writing and sending a text on their mobile phone.

You know what happens next.

Yup, it seems our phones lower our multi-tasking skills. People took 118% longer to reach the end of the pathway when they were writing a text, and 67% longer when they were reading a text. Hilariously, the researchers also noted a “cautious stepping strategy” as people attempted to walk in a straight line. As for the box, nobody tripped over it – which is some consolation.

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