Texting and walking? Guilty as charged.

by Noele Crooks

We’ve heard over and over the dangers of texting and driving, but what about the dangers of texting and walking? I know that I have had students, or people walking through the mall, almost run into me because they were too busy texting.  What are your thoughts? Have you been guilty of this? What public relations tactics can be used to alert the public of this problem?

Oh dear, consider me caught red-handed on this one. I’m a big walking texter when it comes to campus and between classes. I do that thing that everyone does where you walk and look up about every 2 seconds to make sure you’re not going to run into anyone walking, cycling, driving, skateboarding, etc. However, usually when I’m in public places like the mall or the grocery store I try to refrain from walking and texting because there is just too much that could go wrong. Not saying that I don’t do it, but it’s a lot less than how much I text on campus. Before I got a touch-screen phone, I could text and walk and practically text and do anything at the same time because I had predictive text and only have to use my thumb.  Now, touchscreen makes that much harder, mainly because I have to use two hands. I still make mistakes and have to backspace a million times even though it’ll be the anniversary of me having my phone for one year this May. Embarrassing. But anyways, needless to say it takes a lot more attention than before and so it’s much hard to text while doing other things.

I think it would be hard to try and make this issue known to the public, and try to make a difference. It is already illegal to text while driving (in the state of Georgia), and people would probably laugh if they considered trying to limit people texting and walking. I also think if people saw any kinds of advertisements or heard of public relations campaigns they would think it was a joke. Not because it’s not an issue, but when you say it, it just sounds silly. I just can’t see it being very effective, regardless of the fact that it is a problem and people do have issues with texting and walking. However, even though I think it is an issue that will hopefully just fade away (just like the bell bottoms trend), I think scare tactics would be effective. Take those terrible meth commercials for example. I never considered doing meth, but after seeing those terrible commercials, I wouldn’t ever even want to come close to a mile of someone who was even on meth or thought about it. Scary.

But, on a lighter note, there could be some other commercials that could be created to just alert the public not so much of the dangers, but of how inconsiderate texting while walking can be to others.

(Here is where I would link to a meth commercial, but am choosing not to because no one would even view it…because they are terrifying.)