Via the NYT.

I’ve heard of “Driving While Distracted”, but never realized the impact cell phones have on those who are merely “Walking While Distracted”. At the University of Washington, an informal study was conducted to see how many people would notice a guy cycling around in a clown suit on a unicycle, which trust me, is not necessarily a typical Seattle scene.

After a student donned the clown suit and did his brave ride around camps, 1 in 3 people who were walking alone told researchers about the unusual clown sighting and almost 60% of people who were walking with one or more people saw the clown, but of the cell phone talkers, only 8% saw the unicycling clown.

This is amazing. I know that perceptions become limited when we use one sense over another, but how does talking on a cell phone make you virtually blind? This study is related to an earlier study in which the researchers noticed that people trying to walk and talk on their cell phones at the same time “walked more slowly, and changed directions more frequently”, which pretty much means that if you are multi-tasking by walking and talking on your cell phone, you will have the coordination of a drunk person and the vision of a legally blind person.

The “clown study” demonstrates that talking on a cell phone can be almost as dangerous as texting. Virginia Tech University had a study on the dangers of driving while texting and found that drivers are 23 times more likely to get into an accident while texting. For an example of how texting can affect your ability to concentrate, check out this handy little game from the NYT.