Predictors of cellphone-related distracted walking among college students

ABSTRACT

Distracted walking is dangerous, and the number of pedestrian injuries due to smartphone use has increased over time. Research is lacking at present on the reasons and motives for distracted walking. The present paper addresses this gap in the literature. We examine the nature and extent of cellphone-related distracted walking among college students and explore the role of the perceived benefits and costs of distracted walking, drawing on the Rational Choice approach. Multiple regression analysis based on survey data from a random sample of 940 college students revealed that perceptions of the necessity and safety of cellphone use predicted frequency of cellphone-related distracted walking, as did the moral belief that it was good to do so. Younger students and females were also more likely to engage in cellphone-related distracted walking. We consider the implications of the findings and provide recommendations to address this risky behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Distracted walking
• texting while walking
• college students
• rational choice
• multiple regression

Compliance with ethical standards

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Review Board (Protocol # 18-413) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Notes

¹ After removing survey ‘speeders,’ those who completed the survey in less than 47% of the median duration of 10 minutes, there were 1,199 cases. A review of the frequency distributions for all variables to be included in our statistical analyses revealed missing cases on 14 of the 15 variables (missing values ranged from 0 to 252). We employed Complete Case Analysis (CCA), which resulted in a sample size of 940 cases. We compared the complete cases (n = 940) to cases with incomplete data (n = 259) on the independent variables. There were no statistically significant differences.