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distracted walkers treated in
selected American emergency
rooms “more than quadrupled”
in the seven years surveyed, and
were “almost certainly underreported.” A spokesman for the
Governors Highway Safety Association told the AP: “We are
where we were with cell phone
use in cars 10 years or so ago. We
knew that it was a problem, but
we didn’t have the data.”
Blame the universal myth of
multi-tasking for the problem:
human brain evolution does not
allow for texting at the same time
as walking, and that’s a fact. You
cannot think as a split-screen: You
are always limited to one task at a
time, one requiring full attention,
and one which becomes a hazardous distraction. What appears to
you to be multi-tasked activity
are really two tasks half-heartedly
attended to, with sometimes-fatal
results. You can walk but not text,
or text but not walk, much as you
can drive but not text or text but
not drive, and never both at the
same time. If you get away with
doing both at the same time, it
is mere luck, not your superior
multi-tasking skills. Luck is fickle.
Solutions will be hard to come
by. State legislatures refuse to
DR. ROCK
POSITANO
HUFFINGTON
09.29.13
We are where we were
with cell phone use in cars
10 years or so ago.”
seriously consider “distracted
walking” statutes outlawing the
practice, showing a preliminary
reluctance to any control on the
practice, much as “distracted
driving” laws, now common, drew
great controversy when first codified in law. But that changed when
the body count leapt from year
to year, much as the body count
of “distracted walking” barrels
upward. It remains to be seen
whether distracted walking remains a viral joke or is treated
with the somber urgency it
truly deserves.
Dr. Rock Positano is the director of
the Non-surgical Foot and Ankle
Service at the Hospital for Special
Surgery in New York.