I’ve mentioned before my irritation with people who walk through New York streets while texting or otherwise staring into their smart phone. Their assumption, as they blithely head towards a collision with you, is that you will do them the favor of moving, because clearly whatever they’re texting about is more important than your ability to walk uninterrupted. (In my opinion, the rest of us should all stop changing direction and take them out like a blocking dummy at football training camp.)

So I am not surprised/amused/sort of glad to see that there is apparently an epidemic of “distracted walking” injuries.

From the LA Times:

The number of people who have landed in U.S. emergency rooms thanks to injuries incurred while they were walking and texting, tweeting, playing video games, talking on the phone, or listening to music on headphones, has more than quadrupled in the past seven years….

I’m hoping that our infatuation with our devices—which so often translates into a kind of anti-social narcissism at the expense of community and courtesy—is simply a phase of our electronic evolution, and that eventually people will realize that it’s kind of obnoxious to walk and text, and that their text isn’t very important anyway.

But in the meantime, this news is wickedly satisfying…