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ome have dubbed texting
"the new drunk driving" — and for good reason. New research suggests
that texting while walking can also be dangerous, as it rounds up all the head
and neck injuries that occurred due to cell phone use over a 20 year period.
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on PinterestText distractions may lead to accidents.
According to the United
States Department of Transportation, distracted driving led to 3,166 deaths in 2017.
Of these deaths, 599
affected pedestrians, cyclists, and others who were not behind the wheel of a
car at the time of the accident.
Although distracted driving
includes more than just texting, "dialing or text messaging on [a] cell
phone or any wireless email device" was responsible for 401 fatal crashes in
2017.
However, texting while
driving is not the only way in which cell phone use can be distracting and
potentially dangerous.
Texting while walking can
also lead to accidents, and with 96% of people in the U.S. owning a smartphone,
researchers set out to ask what percentage of head and neck injuries are
attributable to cell phone use.
Roman Povolotskiy — from
the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at Rutgers New Jersey
Medical School in Newark — is the first author of a new paper that investigates
this.
Its results appear in the
journal JAMA Otolaryngology-Head &
Neck SurgeryTrusted Source.
76,000 people at risk of cell phone injuries
Povolotskiy and colleagues
analyzed 20 years' worth of data, examining the records of emergency department
visits due to head and neck injuries.
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Specifically, they looked
at emergency department visits between January 1998 and December 2017 to
examine "the incidence, types, and mechanisms of head and neck injuries
associated with cell phone use."
The study was retrospective
cross-sectional, and the researchers used national databases.
During the study period,
they found that 2,501 people aged 13–29 presented at the emergency department
with head and neck injuries related to cell phone use. Based on these data, the
researchers estimated a national total of 76,043 people with similar injuries.
A third of the injuries
occurred in the head and neck area, and another third were facial injuries,
including eyes, eyelid area, and nose. Over 12% of the injuries were to the
neck.
"The most common
injury diagnosis," write the study authors, "included laceration
(26.3% of estimated total), contusion/abrasion (24.5%), and internal organ
injury (18.4%)."
People aged 13–29 years
were most at risk of these injuries.
"Cell phone-related
injuries to the head and neck have increased steeply over the recent 20 year
period, with many cases resulting from distraction," explain the study
authors.
"Although the
disposition of most cases is simple, some injuries bear a risk of long-term
complications," they add.
The researchers hope that
their findings contribute to public health strategies for prevention regarding
cell phone use, particularly among young people. Povolotskiy and colleagues
say:
"Many of these injuries occurred among
those aged 13 to 29 years and were associated with common activities, such as
texting while walking. These findings suggest a need for patient education
about injury prevention and the dangers of activity while using these
devices."
To the study authors'
knowledge, this was the first study to examine the role of cell phones and cell
phone-related distractions in head and neck injuries.
However, they do
acknowledge a few limitations to their study. For instance, the database they
used did not have any information about other co-existing conditions,
treatments, or outcomes.
Also, the database did not
include information about visits to other healthcare settings, such as urgent
care settings.
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