Drooping heads, do you know smombie?
Do you know smombie?
It is a shortened compound word of smartphone and zombie.
It refers to a pedestrian who walks on the street without attention to the surroundings because he or she is excessively engrossed in their smartphone.
As people are increasingly more reliant on their smartphone, there has been a surge in safety accidents by smombie.
Bumping into each other is an everyday occurrence. Not only that, some people fall into a manhole while others find themselves floundering in a lake.
We frequently hear news report of horrible safety accidents smombies are involved in.
Augsburg Central Railway Station in Germany have installed LED lights on the bottom for smombies who walk around with their head drooped toward the ground. Belgium has designated a pedestrian walkway dedicated to smartphone users separate from a regular pedestrian sidewalk to minimize crash0related accidents caused by smombies.
Last October, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA,
We made a law to prohibit the use of smartphone while we were walking.
If you are caught using a smartphone while walking on the street, i can get a fine up to $99.
While it is important and necessary to reduce the occurrence of accidents by changing the walking environment in a creative manner, wouldn't changing our perception and raising safety awareness be no less important?
We start our day with a smartphone alarm and goes to ed with our smartphone in our hand. It is no one but we who should strike a balance between benefits and harms a smartphone brings.