Texting and walking: Effect of environmental setting and task prioritization on dual-task interference in healthy young adults

•Dual-task effects on gait and texting are not influenced by environmental setting.•Flexible prioritization of attention is not impacted by environmental setting.•Young adults prioritize texting over walking when there are few distractions.•Results support concerns about pedestrian safety during texting while walking.

Recent studies have shown that young adults significantly reduce their gait speed and weave more when texting while walking. Previous research has not examined the simultaneous dual-task effects on texting performance, therefore, the attention prioritization strategy used by young adults while texting and walking is not currently known. Moreover, it is not known whether laboratory-based studies accurately reflect texting and walking performance in the real world. This study compared dual-task interference during texting and walking between laboratory and real-world settings, and examined the ability of young adults to flexibly prioritize their attention between the two tasks in each environment. Texting and walking were assessed in single-task and three dual-task conditions (no-priority, gait-priority, texting-priority) in the lab and a University Student Center, in 32 healthy young adults. Dual-task effects on gait speed, texting speed, and texting accuracy were significant, but did not significantly differ between the two environments. Young adults were able to flexibly prioritize their attention between texting and walking, according to specific instruction, and this ability was not influenced by environmental setting. In the absence of instructions, young adults prioritized the texting task in the low-distraction environment, but displayed more equal focus between tasks in the real world. The finding that young adults do not significantly modify their texting and walking behavior in high-distraction environments lends weight to growing concerns about cell phone use and pedestrian safety.