some people can't walk and chew gum at the same time ...

[rubato]

Others can't phone and walk:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 061913.php

Distracted walking: injuries soar for pedestrians on phones
Cell phone use not just dangerous for drivers, study finds



IMAGE: Emergency room visits due to pedestrians injured while walking with cell phones have soared in recent years. And it may be worse than it seems here.
Click here for more information.




COLUMBUS, Ohio – More than 1,500 pedestrians were estimated to be treated in emergency rooms in 2010 for injuries related to using a cell phone while walking, according to a new nationwide study.

The number of such injuries has more than doubled since 2005, even though the total number of pedestrian injuries dropped during that time. And researchers believe that the actual number of injured pedestrians is actually much higher than these results suggest.

"If current trends continue, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of injuries to pedestrians caused by cell phones doubles again between 2010 and 2015," said Jack Nasar, co-author of the study and professor of city and regional planning at The Ohio State University.

"The role of cell phones in distracted driving injuries and deaths gets a lot of attention and rightly so, but we need to also consider the danger cell phone use poses to pedestrians."

The study found that young people aged 16 to 25 were most likely to be injured as distracted pedestrians, and most were hurt while talking rather than texting.

Nasar conducted the study with Derek Troyer, a former graduate student at Ohio State. It appears in the August 2013 issue of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention.

The researchers used data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, a database maintained by the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), which samples injury reports from 100 hospitals around the country. These reports are used to estimate total injury occurrences at emergency rooms across the country.

They examined data for seven years (from 2004 to 2010) involving injuries related to cell phone use for pedestrians in public areas (in other words, not at home).

A wide variety of injuries were reported. One 14-year-old boy walking down a road while talking on a cell phone fell 6 to 8 feet off a bridge into a rock-strewn ditch, suffering chest and shoulder injuries. A 23-year-old man was struck by a car while walking on the middle line of a road and talking on a cell phone, injuring his hip. ... "

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

The proliferation of electronic devices has made people less and less connected to the real world around them. They aren't in the space where they are with the people who are around them, they're mentally somewhere else.

I can only wonder what other effects this disconnection will have over time.

yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

I agree rubato.

At least once a week I seeone walking in the middle of the street either texting or yapping on their phone totally oblivious to what's going on around them.
They probably should be up for a Darwin award but it might be too common an occurance.

[Econoline]

What's really scary is when you see one of these Darwin Award candidates carrying (or pushing in a stroller) a baby or toddler while walking across a busy street, oblivious to everything except their phone.

[dgs49]

The questions are BEGGED:

Who are they talking to?

Why is it necessary to have that particular conversation at that particular time?

What did they do before they had a cell phone?

[dales]

masturbated

[rubato]

I think that the cell phone and the other myriad electronic distractions represent a novel problem for modern humanity to cope with. 500,000 years of evolution didn't equip us to cope with this.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Oh gosh, I'm forced to agree with rube again....

I'm not a cell phone or gadget Nazi,; I'm not one of those priggy type who gets into a snit when someone uses a cell phone in a restaurant, for example. I couldn't care less.

But I draw the line when people's preoccupation with some new fangled device rises to the level of endangering the physical safety of other people.

[rubato]

How is it going to effect the development of social skills now that people are spending less time in conversation in-person and more time in texting and tweeting? How will people learn about nature, about the world around them now that they spending less and less time looking at the world, engaged with the world, and more time looking at the artificial world of an LED ?


Are we crippling our children?

With dogs there is s defined period of life when they are able to learn social skills and learn how to interact with other dogs and with people. If you miss it, it is over. With humans there is a period of life when it is possible to learn language and if it is missed that person can never learn language (based on limited case histories, admittedly). What happens to the acquisition of these skills if the time spent practicing them is reduced by half? By three-quarters? How much of our understanding of nature is derived from the assimilation of thousands of moments looking at plants, looking at the myriad ways that animals and insects move, how water flows and snow melts.

I have the uneasy feeling that in 20 years we will start to find out and it won't be good.


yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

....I'm not one of those priggy type who gets into a snit when someone uses a cell phone in a restaurant, for example. I couldn't care less.

I've never been called "priggy" before, although I'm sure I have acted priggishly once or twice...

[Joe Guy]

I have the uneasy feeling that in 20 years we will start to find out and it won't be good.

The future is now.

[rubato]

I have the uneasy feeling that in 20 years we will start to find out and it won't be good.

The future is now.

I was referring to the effects of that behavior. Not the behavior itself.

yrs,
rubato

[dales]

How is it going to effect the development of social skills now that people are spending less time in conversation in-person and more time in texting and tweeting? How will people learn about nature, about the world around them now that they spending less and less time looking at the world, engaged with the world, and more time looking at the artificial world of an LED ?

I agree, except your last acronym should be LCD (liquid crystal display) not LED (light emitting diode)

[oldr_n_wsr]

I'm not one of those priggy type who gets into a snit when someone uses a cell phone in a restaurant, for example. I couldn't care less.

I've been chastised for chastising someone using a phone in a resturant. We were at the resturant celebrating my MIL's birthday and he just could not put the phone down. Texting (at least he wasn't talking the whole time) constantly. I told him to stop and got in trouble from my wifes niece and my SIL.

I think people who are constantly texting are going to have neck and thumb problems if they are not Darwined first by a bus or car as they step off the curb.

[Sue U]

How is it going to effect the development of social skills now that people are spending less time in conversation in-person and more time in texting and tweeting? How will people learn about nature, about the world around them now that they spending less and less time looking at the world, engaged with the world, and more time looking at the artificial world of an LED ?


Are we crippling our children?

With dogs there is s defined period of life when they are able to learn social skills and learn how to interact with other dogs and with people. If you miss it, it is over. With humans there is a period of life when it is possible to learn language and if it is missed that person can never learn language (based on limited case histories, admittedly). What happens to the acquisition of these skills if the time spent practicing them is reduced by half? By three-quarters? How much of our understanding of nature is derived from the assimilation of thousands of moments looking at plants, looking at the myriad ways that animals and insects move, how water flows and snow melts.

I have the uneasy feeling that in 20 years we will start to find out and it won't be good.


yrs,
rubato

I have teen and "tween" children. They and their friends spend a lot of time on their phones/i-things. Nevertheless, they all manage to read, write and speak in English (and most in a second language, too), play sports and music, ride bikes, go to parties, cook a meal and generally interact with others (and the world) in person.

From my own observations, it appears to me that personal electronics are far less hazardous to social skills and general learning than television was for my generation, and as a species we seem to have survived that, too, despite similar predictions of societal catastrophe.

[Big RR]

I recall something similar with comic books as well. And rock and roll music. There's no shortage of the new things "they" will opine on at length to condemn and predict will lead us to perdition and our end. Sure there are some kids who grow up and don't develop social skills and other interests, but we always had them; it's not the fault of personal electronics--if it wasn't that it would be TV, or radio, or comics, or graphic novels, or ________________________ (fill in the blank) music, or ...

[Crackpot]

Porn

Easy access to porn will ruin us all

[Gob]

The Walkman is designed and sold for private listening of music in public space. “By bringing what was conventionally
conceived of as a private act-private listening-into public space”, the Walkman made the boundaries between the private and public spheres obscure.(Du Gay. p.115).

The introduction of the Walkman into society has lead to disagreements between different generations. And the Walkman created a ‘moral panic’. As Douglas points out, when ‘out of place’ is somehow taken into the public, the common reaction is to try to exclude it when people feel it as a threat to order.

[rubato]

Walkmans never achieved the ubiquity of the current personal electronic devices either in numbers sold or in the number of uses per day. Also, they only block ones sense of sound (from the immediate environment) not sight and do not engage one's whole attention as people are engaged when texting &c.

The human environment is a rich sensual experience and a lot of our understanding of it comes from absorption over time. There is also a talent in active 'seeing' which is dulled by lack of use.


yrs,
rubato