Does the Story behind Your Text Show Up in the Way You Walk?

Typing while walking can seem like one activity, whatever you are writing about. Could describing an angry experience affect the walk differently from describing a sad one?

In a small indoor experiment, people walked faster on average while describing an angry experience than a sad one. The 34 healthy Hebrew-speaking adults, aged 18–40, recalled personal events and typed about them during two-minute walks along a 30-meter walkway. They completed neutral, happy, sad, angry and fearful writing conditions, as well as walking without writing. The order varied randomly between participants, rather than putting everyone through the feelings in the same sequence. They used the same phone throughout, while two sensors worn on their shins provided movement data for estimating walking speed.¹

The reported average speeds were 1.10 meters per second during anger writing and 1.05 during sadness writing. Across the five writing conditions combined, participants walked more slowly than when they walked without writing. That pooled result did not establish a separate slowdown for each writing condition. Neutral writing was included in the average; it was still a writing task. The anger–sadness comparison does not establish a speed advantage over walking alone or neutral writing.¹

Participants drew on their own experiences; they were not all copying an identical message. The researchers did not analyze those personal accounts, so they could not identify a feature of the words that explained the speed difference. The task also combined several activities: recalling an event, experiencing the associated feeling and putting the experience into language. These happened together, leaving their separate contributions unresolved. The researchers detected no clear difference in typing speed between writing conditions, but that does not establish that composing or recalling each account was equally demanding.¹

The task involved prompted personal memories, rather than incoming messages or exchanges with another person. Its small sample and brief indoor walks leave uncertainty about everyday texting. Walking faster in one condition also does not establish better walking or a safety or health benefit.¹

What you’re trying to say is part of texting, even if someone watching only sees you looking at a phone. Remembering a personal experience and finding words for it are part of the task too. That is why “texting while walking” leaves so much out, before we even ask about walking speed.