Smartphones and pedestrian safety

File:Crowd of people with phones.jpg

Safety hazards have been noted due to pedestrians walking slowly and without attention to their surroundings because they are focused upon their smartphones. Texting pedestrians may trip over curbs, walk out in front of cars and bump into other walkers. The field of vision of a smartphone user is estimated to be just 5% of a normal pedestrian's.

Some cities have taken design measures to make the streets safer for inattentive pedestrians, including lights embedded in pavements, and dedicated lanes for smartphone-using pedestrians to use.

The pejorative term smartphone zombie has been used to describe inattentive phone users;{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161129-the-new-words-that-reveal-how-tech-has-changed-us|title=The new words that expose our smartphone obsessions|last=Chatfield|first=Tom|website=www.bbc.com|date=29 November 2016 |language=en|access-date=2019-01-22}} this phrase was sometimes blended to smombie in German{{cite news |last1=Wordsworth |first1=Dot |title=The word of the year (whether we like it or not) |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-word-of-the-year-whether-we-like-it-or-not/ |access-date=17 April 2023 |work=The Spectator |date=17 December 2020}} and has seen some English usage.{{cite news |last1=English |first1=BBC Learning |title=BBC Learning English - The English We Speak / Smombie |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/features/the-english-we-speak/ep-180402 |access-date=25 April 2023 |work=BBC Learning English}} In Hong Kong such phone users are called dai tau juk ("the head-down tribe"). A 2017 review considered the popular culture term in regards to the medical diagnoses of internet addiction disorder and other forms of digital media overuse.{{Citation|last1=Duke|first1=Éilish|title=Smartphone Addiction and Beyond: Initial Insights on an Emerging Research Topic and Its Relationship to Internet Addiction|date=2017|work=Internet Addiction: Neuroscientific Approaches and Therapeutical Implications Including Smartphone Addiction|pages=359–372|editor-last=Montag|editor-first=Christian|series=Studies in Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavioral Economics|publisher=Springer International Publishing|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-46276-9_21|isbn=9783319462769|last2=Montag|first2=Christian|editor2-last=Reuter|editor2-first=Martin}}

Problematic mobile phone use

{{Excerpt|Digital media use and mental health|Distracted road use}}

Urban design

File:Smombie sign in Osaka, March 2017.jpg]]

In Chongqing, China, the government constructed a dedicated smartphone-sidewalk in 2014, separating the phone users and the non-phone users. A similar scheme was introduced in Antwerp the following year.

In Augsburg, Bodegraven and Cologne, ground-level traffic lights embedded in the pavement have been introduced so that they are more visible to preoccupied pedestrians, while traffic signals at an intersection in Zagreb cast the red light downwards, producing glare on smartphone screens.{{cite web |agency=HINA |title=U Zagrebu postavljen semafor koji upozorava pješake zadubljene u mobitele |url=https://www.tportal.hr/vijesti/clanak/u-zagrebu-postavljen-semafor-koji-pjesake-zadubljene-u-mobitele-upozorava-na-crveno-20191012 |website=Tportal.hr |access-date=14 February 2022 |location=Zagreb, Croatia |language=hr |date=12 October 2019}}

In Seoul, warning signs have been placed on the pavement at dangerous intersections following over a thousand road accidents caused by smartphones in South Korea in 2014. The city has also implemented traffic lights embedded into the ground to pass the indication to the pedestrian even if they are fully immersed in their smartphone experience.

File:Korean smartphone zombie pedestrian traffic light green.jpg|Seoul pavement light in green

File:Korean smartphone zombie pedestrian traffic light green close up.jpg|Seoul pavement light in green, close up

File:Korean smartphone zombie pedestrian traffic light red.jpg|Seoul pavement light in red

File:Korean smartphone zombie pedestrian traffic light red close up.jpg|Seoul pavement light in red, close up

Phone technology

An app which uses the phone's camera to make the screen appear transparent can be used to provide some warning of hazards.

Legal measures

In October 2017, the City of Honolulu, Hawaii introduced a measure to fine pedestrians looking at smartphones while crossing the road.{{citation |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/10/25/looking-your-phone-while-crossing-street-cost-you-honolulu/797796001/ |newspaper=USA Today |title=Looking at your phone while crossing the street will cost you in Honolulu |author=Brett Molina |date= 25 October 2017}} In 2019, China introduced penalties for "activities affecting other vehicles or pedestrians" and a woman was fined 10 yuan in Wenzhou.{{citation |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-46902965 |title='Smartphone zombie' fine cheered on Chinese social media |publisher=BBC News |author=George Pierpoint, Kerry Allen |date=17 January 2019}}

In fiction

Science fiction author Ray Bradbury wrote about people being distracted by miniaturised technology in the 1950s, in his stories such as The Pedestrian and Fahrenheit 451. He wrote in 1958 of observing a couple walking in Beverly Hills, the woman listening to a small transistor radio "oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleepwalking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there".

References

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