Posture and Texting: Effect on Balance in Young Adults

Using a mobile phone while doing another activity is a common dual-task activity in our daily lives. This study examined the effect of texting on the postural stability of young adults. Twenty college students were asked to perform static and dynamic postural stability tasks. Traditional COP and multivariate multiscale entropy (MMSE) were used to assess the static postural stability and the Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT) was used to assess the dynamic postural stability. Results showed that (1) texting impaired postural stability, (2) the complexity index did not change much although the task conditions changed, and (3) performing texting is perceived to be more difficult.