Effects of Mobile Technology Use on Walking

Abstract

Objective: The goal of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of combining cognitive and kinematic measurements to study the effects of mobile technology use on walking. Background: It has previously been shown that being distracted by a cell phone, or other mobile technology, can have a negative impact on activities such as crossing a street and may also alter gait patterns. While the negative effects of cell phone use on driving have been extensively studied, research into the distracted pedestrian is lacking. Method: Twelve adults walked down an office corridor without using a cell phone (BASELINE) and while performing a secondary cognitive task under two conditions. The secondary task involved answering simple multiplication problems through either text messaging (TEXT) or while talking on the phone (VOICE). Participants' gait patterns were measured using a GAITRite gait pad LEGSys wearable wireless sensors. Results: In the TEXT condition, participants walked more slowly and had shorter strides. There was no significant difference between the VOICE and BASELINE condition. Participants answered more multiplication problems per trial in the VOICE condition as compared to the TEXT condition. Excluding typos, error rates for the multiplication problems were not significantly different between the TEXT and VOICE conditions. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that the effect of reading and responding to text messages on gait was able to be detected utilizing methods that do not require strictly sterile laboratory settings. This serves as a proof of concept for researchers to bring the study and evaluation of distracted walking into the naturalistic environments in which it actually occurs. Application: This proof of concept will serve as a roadmap towards moving the study of gait and distraction from simple observational studies in naturalistic environments to specific quantitative analysis of people performing real world tasks in real world settings.

Possibility of Using Entropy Method to Evaluate the Distracting Effect of Mobile Phones on Pedestrians

“…The common parameters in the reviewed studies are: gait phase [16], gait velocity [6,16], gait speed [14,[17][18][19], gait cycle [17], cadence [12,14,17,18], stride velocity [12], stride time [12,14,17], stride length [12,14,17,18,20], step time [14,17,21], step length [14,17,21,22], single support [17], and double support [17,18,22]. Other than the common parameters, the reviewed studies also used the other gait parameters: range of motion [20,23], local stability and margin of stability [21].…”

“…Phoning is considered to be as distracting as a mental task [5], but less distracting than texting. The subjects walked slower and had shorter strides while performing walking and texting [12]. Texting involves reading and typing, which is more cognitively demanding than talking [11].…”

Changes in Gait Pattern During Smartphone and Tablet Use

“…Furthermore, stride length was shorter while typing a text message on smartphones and tablets. Previous studies that tested the effects of walking while typing a text message on smartphones found that stride length was also reduced [7][8][9]. Comparing the step time indicated that the right step time was significantly different; the right step time was increased.…”

“…Most individuals who use smartphones and tablets develop addictive behaviors, impacting their use in the ADLs, especially when walking on such pavements as sidewalks and roads. This issue increases the risk of falling; crashing with obstacles or other passengers, and experiencing car accidents that may cause injury and death [3,7]. Numerous researchers are interested in exploring the use of smartphones while walking.…”

“…Furthermore, step time, stride time, and step width were increased when using a smartphone to walk over obstacles or walk up and down ramps. Additionally, walking while using a smartphone to type text messages or read articles increased lateral deviation [3,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”