Concurrent phone texting alters crossing behavior and induces gait imbalance during obstacle crossing.
Szu-Hua Chen, On-Yee Lo, Taylor Kay and 1 others
PMID 29653403WHAT IT FOUND
Texting while crossing an obstacle made young adults walk slower and lift their feet higher, but increased their side-to-side body sway.
This suggests texting disrupts balance control during complex walking tasks, even when participants try to compensate.
Key findings
01Participants walked significantly slower and lifted their feet higher over the obstacle when texting compared to crossing alone.
02Texting caused significantly greater side-to-center-of-mass displacement during the crossing stride, indicating impaired balance control.
03The leading foot was placed closer to the obstacle after crossing when texting, which may increase the risk of stepping on the obstacle.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study included only 10 healthy young adults, so findings may not apply to older adults, people with balance impairments, or those with less texting experience. The way participants held the phone was not controlled, which could have affected balance independently of the texting task. The texting task involved simple questions with short answers, which may not reflect the cognitive load of real-world conversations. The study did not include a control condition where participants held a phone without texting, so it is unclear how much of the balance disruption was due to the dual-task demand versus holding the device.
Declared interests
The research received no specific grant from any funding agency. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this study proves texting causes falls. It shows that texting disrupts balance metrics in a controlled lab setting for young, healthy adults, but it does not measure actual fall incidents or generalise to vulnerable populations.