Reading while walking? How to break the habit
You’re walking around and a thought occurs: “I should check my phone.” The phone comes out of your pocket. You type a message. Your eyes remain glued to the screen, even when you walk across the street.
We all do this kind of distracted walking, or “twalking.” (Yes, this term is really a thing.)
The behavior has spawned debates about whether walking and texting should be illegal. Some cities, such as Honolulu and Rexburg, Idaho, have banned distracted walking altogether.
Last year, pedestrian deaths in the United States were at their highest point since 1990, with distracted drivers and bigger vehicles the chief culprits. So being fixated on a screen while walking can’t be safe.
“We know research-wise it’s not a good idea, and commonsense-wise it can’t be a good idea,” said Ken Kolosh, a manager of statistics at the National Safety Council. “We don’t ever want to blame the victim, but there’s personal responsibility all of us have.”
So why do we do it? I talked to neuroscientists and psychologists. All agreed that texting while walking might be a form of addictive behavior.
But this isn’t about pointing fingers. Rather, now is a good time to reflect on why we are glued to our phones, what we know about the risks and how we can take control of our personal technology rather than let it control us.
Why we text and walk
People are, by nature, information-seeking creatures. When we regularly check our phones, we are snacking on information from an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Our information-foraging tendencies evolved from the behavior of animals foraging for food for survival, said Dr. Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist and co-author of the book “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a HighTech World.” Studies have shown that our brains feel rewarded when we receive information, which drives us to seek more. That’s similar to how our appetites feel sated after we eat.
So we get stuck in cycles. At what point is this addiction?
Not all constant phone use is considered addictive, said Steven Sussman, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California. External pressures, like a demanding job, could force people to frequently check their phones. But when people check just to enhance their mood, this could be a sign of a developing problem.
Another signal of addictive behavior is becoming preoccupied with smartphone use when you should be doing something else. A clearer indicator is what happens when the phone is taken away.
“Let’s say you go out to the mountains and you don’t get reception,” Sussman said. “Do you feel a sense of relief ? Or do you feel, wow, I want to get out of these mountains — I want to use the smartphone. If you feel the latter, that’s toward the addictive direction.”
The debate over the danger
Just how dangerous is distracted walking? The answer is: It’s still unclear.
This year, New York City’s Transportation Department published one study, including data collected about pedestrianrelated incidents in New York and nationwide, which found little concrete evidence to link distracted walking with pedestrian fatalities or injuries.
Yet the National Safety Council said the national data cited in the New York study did not include information on whether pedestrians were engaged in other tasks at the time of the incidents.
The council instead published a study conducted by the University of Maryland in 2013. It found that between 2000 and 2011, there were hundreds of emergency room visits related to phone use while walking, and the primary cause of injury was a fall.
How to take control
Obviously, the answer to not getting into dangerous situations by walking and texting is not to walk and text at the same time.
Melanie Greenberg, a clinical psychologist and author of “The Stress-Proof Brain,” said people could practice being more mindful by asking themselves:
Is this the most important thing for me to be doing right now?
Am I controlling my destiny, or am I letting tech control it?
How is my posture? Am I stressing my body?
Am I going to cause myself harm?
Reducing access to the device can be helpful, Gazzaley said. Carry your phone in your bag instead of your pocket, making it more troublesome to pull out.
The National Safety Council said that when pedestrians have to check their phones, they should stop walking and stand in a safe place.
Chris Marcellino, a former Apple engineer, recommended going into the phone’s settings and switching off notifications for all apps except those most important to you, like work-related apps. “These are things that aren’t pertinent to your life that are bombarding you all the time,” he said.
Other tools, like the “do not disturb” function on both iPhones and Android phones, can be set to shush notifications temporarily.
Even knowing all this, I caught myself the other day checking Twitter while crossing a parking lot. I reflected on this and realized Twitter was a waste of time.
So I deleted the app. Then I installed another one to block the Twitter website from my phone — just for good measure.