Smartphones and pedestrian safety

Safety hazards have been noted due to pedestrians walking slowly and without attention to their surroundings because they are focused upon their smartphones. Texting pedestrians may trip over curbs, walk out in front of cars and bump into other walkers. The field of vision of a smartphone user is estimated to be just 5% of a normal pedestrian's.

Some cities have taken design measures to make the streets safer for inattentive pedestrians, including lights embedded in pavements, and dedicated lanes for smartphone-using pedestrians to use.

The pejorative term smartphone zombie has been used to describe inattentive phone users; this phrase was sometimes blended to Smombie in German and has seen some English usage. In Hong Kong such phone users are called dai tau juk ("the head-down tribe"). A 2017 review considered the popular culture term in regards to the medical diagnoses of internet addiction disorder and other forms of digital media overuse.

Pedestrian phone use

A 2012 study at twenty intersections in Seattle, USA, found 14% of pedestrians were talking or texting on a phone. A 2018 study of more than two thousand pedestrian observations at four intersections, one in New York City and three in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, found 9% of pedestrians were talking or texting on a phone while crossing; in contrast to the previous study, this study did not find that phone usage altered walking speed.

In 2016 the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons created a "Digital Deadwalkers" awareness campaign, in response to the risks associated with walking across intersections and sidewalks while paying attention only to smartphones and not one's surroundings.