If you've noticed people walking our streets and in public spaces, not looking where they're going while immersed on their mobile phones, it's not your imagination. It is happening everywhere! What is often referred to as 'distracted walking' has been well researched across the world, reducing people's safety and situational awareness, and leading to a variety of injuries and even death.

Jacques and Jennifer talk about the implications of this, invoking Pierre Bourdieu's notion of 'habitus', describing how we unconsciously internalise societal ways of doing things and act them out. Thus the 'habitus' of safely navigating footpaths and roads is competing with the (normalised) habitus of being on mobile phones while walking. Most insidiously, our tech giants have evidently made direct inroads into our minds and our bodies on a regular basis.

Jennifer and Jacques suggest some political resistance by disconnecting from mobile phones while out and about, at the same time increasing safety and improving mental health.

References

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