"The Perils of Texting While Parenting"

In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, an article dubbed “The Perils of Texting While Parenting” continues with the theme introduced in last week’s post about the dangers of texting while walking: increasingly distracted cell phone users are potentially leading to greater instances of childhood injuries.

As the numbers indicate, there seems to be a recent reversal in the overall trend of decreasing childhood injuries that began around the 1970s. From 2007 to 2010, nonfatal injuries sustained by children five and under rose 12%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, recent statistics from the Consumer Product Safety Commission demonstrate that more children are sustaining injuries “…during the activities and ages that would seem to warrant close supervision.”  

Although no studies have proven a causal link between distracted parents and injuries to their children, it is hard to overlook the possibility. As injury prevention specialist David Schwebel is quoted saying in this article, younger children “have a natural risk to hurt themselves if they are not properly watched by an adult. If the adult is distracted, clearly the risk is increased. We know that drivers and pedestrians are distracted and more at risk when they use devices. It’s a fairly small leap to suggest that supervisors are distracted.”

Check out the below link to the read the article and watch a video on WSJ’s website:

Article and Video: "The Perils of Texting While Parenting," by Ben Worthen