Talking on phone risky while crossing road

Children who walk while talking on their cell phone may be too distracted to cross the street safely. Adolescents are using cell phones with increasing frequency. Cell phones are known to distract motor vehicle drivers to the point that their safety is jeopardized, but it is unclear if cell phones might also distract child pedestrians. To examine the risk of accidents because of talking on a cell phone, researchers from America studied seventy-seven children aged 10 to 11 years old. The participants were made to do simulated road crossings in an immersive, interactive virtual pedestrian environment. Children crossed the virtual street 6 times while undistracted and 6 times while distracted by a cell phone conversation with an unfamiliar research assistant. Participants also completed several other experimental tasks hypothesised to predict the impact of distraction while crossing the street and talking on a cell phone. It was found that when the children talked on a cell phone as they traveled, they paid less attention to traffic and were more likely to step into the path of a virtual car. The effects were seen regardless of how much experience a child had in using a cell phone or in being pedestrian. Being a pedestrian is a multifaceted task that requires a combination of mental focus, perception and motor skills and cell-phone distractions further complicate that job. The above findings suggest that just as drivers should limit cell phone use while driving, pedestrians, especially child pedestrians, should limit cell phone use while crossing streets. Further studies are expected to judge whether other types of distractions such as listening to music, text messaging or even talking to someone with you make crossing the street more risky.

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