Phones get smarter, but users don’t
I’VE learned to spot them over the years. The hunched shoulders, the slow gait, the head staring resolutely downwards as though the pavement were fascinating. They’re like zombies, albeit rather slow ones, lumbering relentlessly towards you. Except they are not zombies, but idiots on their phones – so distracted by what is on their screen that they can no longer obey the rules of the pavement, never mind the road.
They’re the ones who wander out in front of you, oblivious to all other human beings. The ones with the volume turned up so high on their headphones they must be suffering from tinnitus. The ones who have never, once, uttered the words ‘sorry’, or at least, not to me.
Yes, there is little more irritating than finding yourself stuck behind these increasingly conspicuous modern menaces, particularly when you’re in a rush. What are they looking at on that little screen, I often wonder? Are they reading about quantum physics, or watching an information film from the World Health Organisation about the spread of coronavirus?
Doubtful. More likely they are replaying a video of a tortoise eating a banana or reading a WhatsApp message from a friend reading ‘lol cool thanx m8’.
Endless frippery, the type social media and free wifi access has turned into a constant, drip-feeding its way into our lives day and night via our increasingly hi-tech mobile devices.
I know I sound like a 102-year-old grouch but there is a lot more at stake than the odd bruise or bump.
Because walking around the world immersed in your phone is dangerous. And in some cases, it can be deadly.
This week, we learnt about the tragic final moments of 15-year-old Sian Ellis, who was killed when she stepped in front of a bus outside her school while looking down at her mobile phone in
January of last year. Moments earlier she had been seen on CCTV walking through the school grounds looking at her phone. She may also have been wearing headphones.
Following her inquest in Leicestershire on Tuesday, her family made a heartbreaking statement.
THEY said: ‘We must try to help others learn from it and to stress the dangers of the use of mobile phones and the distractions these can cause when walking by and crossing busy roads.
‘We hope that, if anything good can come from this, it is that other children (and adults) will have learned not to put themselves in similar danger.’
I admire Sian’s family immensely for using their daughter’s death as a way to highlight the dangers of mobile phone use, particularly among the young.
Because the worrying thing is that as technology gets smarter, and phones get bigger and brighter, these incidents are only going to increase, and our roads will only become more deadly.