If you spend any time on a busy sidewalk, you'll notice bowed heads and eyes looking down. One study of university students found that a quarter of people crossing intersections were distracted by their phones.

Wayne Jiang, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Florida who has studied the relationship between phone use and pedestrian injuries, says: 'I don't think people realize how distracted they are or how much their awareness of their surroundings changes when they walk while using a phone.'

In fact, phones can cause what some experts call 'inattentional blindness,' according to a report by The New York Times, viewed by Al Arabiya Business.

One study found that participants were half as likely to notice a clown riding a unicycle – a satirical addition by the researchers – while walking and talking on the phone.

But that screen in your hand not only distracts you, but also changes your mood, gait, and posture, and hinders your ability to get from point A to point B without problems.

How does a phone hinder your steps?

Dr. Jiang says that when we walk and use the phone at the same time, we involuntarily adjust our movement. Video footage of pedestrians showed that people using their phones walk about 10% slower than their counterparts who are not using them.

Patrick Crowley, a project manager at the Technical University of Denmark who has studied the biomechanics of walking while using a phone, says: 'We observe a number of changes in gait that reflect a slowdown in speed. People take shorter steps and spend more time with both feet on the ground.'

These changes can impede sidewalk traffic. And if walking constitutes a large part of your daily physical activity, walking slowly may have negative effects on your fitness, says Elroy Aguiar, an assistant professor of exercise science at the University of Alabama.

Looking at your phone while walking – instead of standing upright – may increase strain on the muscles of the neck and upper back, potentially contributing to symptoms of 'text neck.'

Research published in the journal Gait & Posture suggests that all this can impair balance and increase the risk of tripping or falling.

How does it affect mood?

When scientists want to study stress, they often ask people to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, because multitasking is a reliable way to induce stress.

Evidence suggests that walking while using a phone works the same way, even if the person doesn't realize it at the time. One experiment showed that the more people used their phones while walking on a treadmill, the higher their levels of the hormone cortisol, known as the 'stress hormone,' rose.

A 2023 study examined the psychological effects of walking in an outdoor park while looking at a phone, compared to walking without using it.

Said Elizabeth Broadbent, one of the study's authors and a professor of health psychology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand: 'Generally, people feel better after walking, and that's what we observed in the group that walked without using a phone.'

She added: 'For the groups that used a phone while walking, these results were reversed. Instead of feeling more positive after walking, participants felt less positive, less enthusiastic, less happy, and less relaxed.'

She and her colleagues attributed these negative effects to poor connection with the surrounding environment, as it is well known that walking in natural settings is beneficial for mental health.

She said: 'Obtaining these benefits seems to require directing attention to the surrounding environment instead of the phone,' adding that it is also possible that walking and trying to use the phone at the same time is inherently annoying, which explains the decline in mood.

Risks of walking while using a phone

Most people realize that walking while using a phone can be risky. Some cities, such as Honolulu, have passed laws to curb the phenomenon of pedestrians distracted by phones. But research on these risks has also revealed surprising findings.

Dr. Jiang's research examined the relationship between 'distracted walking due to phone use' and emergency department visits. Using government data covering the period between 2011 and 2019, he and his colleagues recorded nearly 30,000 walking injuries associated with phone use.

Although many of these incidents occurred on streets and sidewalks, about a quarter occurred inside homes. Dr. Jiang explained that tripping over objects or falling on stairs poses a real risk.

The study showed that age is one of the prominent risk factors for walking injuries while using a phone. Young people aged 11 to 20 recorded the highest injury rate, followed by adults in their 20s, then 30s, then 40s – possibly because young people use their phones more than older adults.

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