The impact of smartphone use on gait in young adults: Cognitive load vs posture of texting

Abstract

Many researches have reported that the use of smartphones has a negative impact on gait variability and speed of pedestrians by dispersion of cognition, but the influence of factors other than cognitive function on gait is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of smartphone use on spatiotemporal gait parameters in healthy young people while walking. 42 healthy young adults were recruited and instructed to walk in four conditions (walking without using a smartphone, typing on a smartphone with both hands, typing on a smartphone with one hand, and texting posture with non-task). All spatiotemporal gait parameters were measured using the GAITRite walkway. Compared to walking without using a smartphone, the subjects walked with a slower cadence and velocity and changed stride length and gait cycle and spent more time in contact with the ground when using a smartphone (p < 0.05). In addition, even if a texting posture was taken without performing a task, a similar change was observed when using a smartphone (p < 0.05). This study found that a cautious gait pattern occurred due to smartphone use, and that a change in gait appeared just by taking a posture without using smartphone. © 2020 Kim et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.