I walk a lot. Even in that much lower speed, much lower stakes situation, I can tell you that eating/drinking is generally completely fine but give somebody a phone and they turn into a blind moron with no concept of other people. Even I’m guilty of it, if I’m trying to skip ads on a podcast or something and I absent-mindedly look down at my phone without getting out of the way and stopping first, by the time I look up I’ll have travelled much further than I thought and have been surprised by people popping out of alleyways or crossing roads etc who are now in front of me.

The number of times I’ve seen people physically walk into lampposts, other people, or just slowly sway side to side on the pavement, taking the whole thing up, while they dick around on their phones… People get out of elevators or up stairs and immediately stop and pull out their phones, blocking the exit for everyone else.

You can’t use a phone and do anything else at the same time unfortunately.