distracted walking Archives

Special walking lane created for the heads-down tribe in China

06/12/201806/11/2018 Stephanie Beck

Heads-down tribe walking path - Zone area marked for walking - pink sneaker

A new pedestrian lane has been created for cell phone users in a Chinese shopping mall. This new path added to the outside of the Bairui Plaza has been specifically created for the heads-down tribe; a nickname for pedestrians who constantly have their heads down with their eyes glued to their mobile phone as they walk and text, use apps, watch videos, etc. Over 65,000 pedestrians are killed each year in China. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 68,000 pedestrians are killed every year in China. With an increasing…

Smartphone addiction prompts “text walking lanes” in Belgium

06/19/201506/17/2015 Julie Campbell

mobile traffic texting smartphone addiction

People are paying so much attention to texting and so little attention to real life that one city has taken action. Antwerp, Belgium, has become the latest city to join into the trend of protecting its residents who have a smartphone addiction by creating text walking lanes that are meant to keep people from wandering into dangerous situations when they fail to glance up at the real world while they are texting. This may sound as though it is a silly thing to do, but texting while walking has become…