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Research Finds Texting While Walking Greatly Increases Your Risk Of Falling While Out And About

It turns out texting while walking is bad for you.W

We’ve all done it; we’ve been walking through the city and decided to quickly reply to a text. Looking at our phones while potentially bumping into someone or falling down a recently opened sink hole.

Heck, some people don’t even do a quick reply, they happily chat to a friend or watch a video whilst walking around and endangering themselves and others.

‘Twalking’ is an epidemic that has taken over our streets and parks. 

It might seem harmless with the only danger being a bit of a bump into someone or a stumble over an obstacle, but a new study by Neuroscience Research Australia at the University of New South Wales has found that twalking greatly increases your risk of a fall.  

Researchers had 50 young people walk along a tiled path while wearing a harness for safety, plus sensors to measure their movement.

One of the tiles along the path could slide, which in turn would make the test subject fall. The subjects had to text ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’ while they walked. 

Researchers found that using your mobile phone while walking “impaired postural balance recovery when slipping, as demonstrated by increased trunk sway. Mobile phone use negatively impacted gait stability as demonstrated by increased step time variability and decreased harmonic ratios.” 

Plus, researchers were surprised by how each volunteer responded to the sliding tile and the danger of falling, as Senior author Matthew Brodie told the ABC "Some slowed down and took a more cautious approach. Others sped up in anticipation of slipping. Such different approaches reinforce how no two people are the same, and to better prevent accidents from texting while walking, multiple strategies may be needed," 

It doesn’t just increase your risk of falling but decreases your ability to text, with the speed and accuracy of their texting being decreased by half. 

So don’t walk and text, just look where you are going, and stop being the most annoying person on the street.