Scientific proof that they're the worst
Macarena, the most aggravating dance a human can perform is that thing where you’re walking down the street and have to out-maneuver a pedestrian who’s texting. At first, it seems like they’re going to crash into you. Then they finally look up from their phone, at which point you have to figure out who’s going to swerve left or right. You both swerve left and realize that won’t work, so you both swerve right, and that goes on and on until you finally get mad enough to yell at them.
If you’re lost in your phone, though, this interpersonal relationship—however fleeting—breaks down. The person who’s approaching you is monitoring your movements and anticipating your behavior, but you’re not reciprocating. You’re adrift, and that means the people following behind you are as well.
This work “is remarkable in the sense that it highlights the important role of a previously ignored aspect—the attention of the pedestrians—on the formation of a collective pattern,” says behavioral scientist Mehdi Moussaid of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, who studies crowd dynamics but wasn’t involved in the research. Clearly, a person with their eyes on their phone is largely blind to the complex dynamics of the crowd.
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