Cell phones, and smartphones in particular, are amazing tools. They let us keep in touch with our friends and family, provide us with incredibly convenient maps and directions when we are lost, and are the ultimate tool in settling bar bets. They are our life support, our life line to everything, so what happens when our every waking moment revolves around it?
There have been numerous issues recently about people who endanger those around them when they constantly look at their phone while walking. A junior high school boy in Nagoya found out just how dangerous staring at your phone can be, both to himself and to the hundreds of people he put in danger.
For some of us, our lives exist on our phones. We can’t even go five minutes without checking it for new messages, tweets, or Instagram likes. For others, maybe the games on their phone are more interesting than the daily happenings of the world around them. However, just like how talking on a cell phone while driving is incredibly dangerous, walking while using a smartphone, or arukisumao (from aruku, to walk, and sumaho the shortened form of smartphone) in Japanese, is causing all kinds of problems, especially in pedestrian-heavy cities like the ones in Japan.
On October 30, at Gokiso station in Nagoya, a junior high school student was staring at his smartphone while walking on the platform. Engrossed in his screen, he wandered too close to the edge of the platform and fell onto the tracks as a train was pulling into the station. The train conductor thankfully noticed the student fall and hit the emergency brake, with the train coming to a stop about 30 meters (about 98 feet) from where the boy had fallen.
Perhaps the boy had been looking up “what to do if you fall onto the train tracks” because after he fell, he quickly made for one of the safety wells at the side of the track.
So many horrifying things could have happened in this situation, and it all stemmed from not paying the proper attention to your surroundings when you are walking. Ad campaigns to raise awareness to this danger are starting to pick up steam, and surely this incident will cause more and more people to pay attention.
Your life might be in your phone, but it’s not worth your life to stay on top of your notifications 24/7. Keep your head up so you don’t become a poster boy/girl for a safety issue that could affect all of us.
Source: Itai News via Mainichi Shimbun
Top Image: Flickr (4563_pic)