Study: That smartphone in your hand changes how you walk
Spend time on any crowded sidewalk and you’ll see heads bent over and eyes cast downward. One recent study of college students found that one-quarter of people crossing intersections were glued to a device.
“I don’t think people are aware of how much they’re distracted and how much their situational awareness changes when they’re walking and using a phone,” said Wayne Giang, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Florida who has examined the link between phone use and walking injuries.
Indeed, our devices can cause what some experts call “inattentional blindness.” One study found that participants were half as likely to notice a clown on a unicycle — a cheeky touch — while walking and talking on a phone.
But that screen in your hand isn’t just diverting your attention. It also changes your mood, your gait and your posture — and hinders your ability to get from point A to B without running into trouble.
How a phone breaks your stride
When we walk and use a phone at the same time, Giang said, we reflexively adjust how we move. Video footage of pedestrians has shown that people on phones walk about 10% slower than their undistracted counterparts.
“You see a number of gait changes that reflect slowing down,” said Patrick Crowley, a project manager at the Technical University of Denmark who has studied the biomechanics of walking while using a phone. “People take shorter steps and spend longer time with both feet on the ground.”
These changes can gum up traffic on the sidewalk. And if walking makes up a big portion of
Phone
to get started, Leigh Johnstone, a gardener and mental health advocate in Southampton, England, who goes by “The Beardy Gardener” to his 21,000 Instagram followers, asks them one question: “Well, what do you like to eat?”
Tomatoes are one of the easiest things to grow, said Johnstone, because they need very little maintenance and can be planted in a pot or hanging basket on a balcony. He also suggested strawberries and herbs like basil, mint or chives.
Or create a habitat garden, which uses native plants to attract and feed wildlife, said Mary Phillips, who leads gardening habitat programs for the National Wildlife Federation. Plant orange milkweed to welcome monarch butterflies and asters to lure honeybees.
If you don’t have access to an outdoor space, find a place to pick your own produce on U-Pick Farm Locator or PickYourOwn.org, said Ginny Yurich, the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, a platform that challenges young people to spend more time outdoors. She also suggested signing up to work on a farm through an organization called Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, which offers opportunities ranging from a day to several weeks.
Do like the kids do
Jill Dreves, the founder of Wild Bear Nature Center in Nederland, Colo., has a simple recipe for getting dirty: Make a mud pie.
She suggested throwing something similar to a sipand-paint event: Ask everyone to bring an old cake pan and get creative with mud.
“Bring out some rocks and beads to press into them, collect some pretty leaves, press your hands or feet in,” said Ms. Dreves, who has organized mud pie parties with her staff. “We save that kind of thing for little kids, but really, as adults, we need to be doing more of it.”
If you have kids to entertain, build a fairy garden, Ms. Yurich said. Gather leaves and moss to create a magical miniature landscape, using sticks to construct huts, bark for the floor and stones for seating.
Johnstone and his 2-yearold daughter like making bug hotels, which encourage insects to shelter inside. They also make seed bombs, which you can assemble any time of year, then store until spring or autumn to throw around the yard.
“A lot of people still have this nervousness around touching soil,” he said. But for him, “it makes me happy.”