Can You Fear Me Now? Cell Chatters Don't See the Clown

Maybe it’s just me, but if I were in some outdoors public space having a chat on the cell phone, and a unicycling clown happened to roll up nearby, I like to think that I’d probably notice.

A freshly released study described by a current LiveScience article may seem tongue in cheek, but absolutely serves to support just why distracted driver laws that involve cell phone usage are founded in real and serious safety concerns.

In an observational study of college-age young adults performed on a campus setting, Western Washington University researcher Ira Hyman Jr. sent a team of observers onto the quad to take notes. The team of observers found that compared to people walking without phones, or even with those listening to iPods, those who walked while chatting on the phone were more likely to walk along an erratic path, walk more slowly, and walk with far less regard to and acknowledgment of other people around them.

The second portion of the study involved seeding the study site with a ringer clown on a unicycle, which one could certainly characterize as something other than your run-of-the-mill member of the university community (clown college notwithstanding).

Hyman’s observers asked about 150 quad walkers if they had seen anything unusual. The subset of subjects chatting on the cell were less than half as likely to state that they had spotted the one-wheeled harlequin.

More significantly, it is not the act of having a conversation with another person that provides the distraction — pairs of students walking together were in fact more likely to report the clown sighting — it is the act of using the phone where the distraction lies.

As Hyman explains to LiveScience:

"So it's not the conversation that's the problem; it's not an electronic device that's the problem, It's something about a cell phone conversation is where the problem is … I think in addition to that, a cell-phone conversation is just harder to maintain; it takes more effort; it's harder to understand the other person; it's harder to get the timing right. It's just a much more difficult task."

This research would appear to solidly support the basis for recently enacted public safety laws regarding driving and phone usage. If a nearby clown on a unicycle is insufficient to divert attention away from the cell phone chat you’re having, then that’s a device best kept away from the driver’s seat.

Photo courtesy of Merelymel13, via Flickr