日本進入智能手機和“低頭走路”時代

Japan has been a late adopter when it comes to smartphones, but it's catching up quickly - already more than half the population owns one. But Tokyo is a crowded city, and warnings are being issued about the risk of mass collisions among phone-using pedestrians at one busy crossing.

It's 5pm on a Friday and I'm standing in a coffee shop above Shibuya crossing - one of the most famous intersections in the world.

It's a place where every two minutes, more than a thousand of Tokyo's smartly dressed commuters and fashion-making teens gather at eight points, ready to cross - then rush straight for each other.

It looks like they must crash, this sea of people, but they swerve and swing around each other, like dancers pirouetting, and they all get to the other side safely.

It's awe-inspiring, so much so that at times it leads people - including myself - to say rather trite things about how it's the perfect symbol of Japanese society: the many individuals acting together for the greater good.

But the reason I'm here, isn't to gawp in amazement, it's in the hope that I'll see people crash.

I want businessmen ploughing into each other, their umbrellas flying off their arms, and immaculately uniformed schoolchildren tripping up grannies.

Why may I get to see this now, when I wouldn't have had the chance even a year ago? It's very simple - smartphones.

Smartphone use is booming in Japan. In 2012, only about a quarter of Japanese used them, most being perfectly happy with their everyday mobiles.

But people have now realised smartphones are just too useful to ignore, especially because they can be used to read newspapers and manga, the Japanese comics which have gone global, without straining your eyes.

More than half of all Japanese now own a smartphone and the proportion is rising fast.

But with that rise has grown another phenomenon - the smartphone walk.

It's that glacial pace people only adopt when they're staring at a phone screen - their head down, arms outstretched, looking like zombies trying to find human prey.

Researchers here have found people don't just walk more slowly when they're on smartphones, their field of vision is reduced to 5% of what it should be, and some are worrying what this means for Shibuya.

Recently the Japanese mobile giant NTT Docomo released a simulationof what would happen there if everyone crossing was doing the smartphone walk.

There would be more than 400 collisions every time, it said, and most likely just 36% of people would get across. Orderly Japanese society as we know it, would be at an end.

Surprisingly, the person who seems most annoyed about this phenomenon is an American.

Michael Cucek is a consultant who has lived here for more than 20 years. In his spare time, he writes a popular political blog called Shisakuthat has recently been littered with posts about what he calls "dumbwalking".

I met Michael this week in Sugamo, a part of Tokyo popular with pensioners who, understandably enough, all walk incredibly slowly.

He told me dumbwalking probably wouldn't be a long-term problem.

Japanese phone etiquette is in fact better than anywhere else in the world - hardly anyone speaks on their phones on trains, and teenagers wouldn't dare broadcast music out of one.

If things got truly bad at Shibuya, the police would just start patrolling the crossing shouting at people to look up. Until that does happen, though, he's going to carry on ranting.

But really, is the smartphone walk such an issue? There's only one way to find out. So I leave the coffee shop, head down to the crossing and start typing an email, promising myself I won't look up until I get to the other side.

I'm soon surrounded by people and only realise the traffic has stopped and it's my time to cross when they start streaming past me.

As I step forward, the experience quickly becomes unnerving - legs jump in and out of my vision without warning, while shopping bags fly towards my face before being pulled away at the last moment.

I'm sure I'm going to get hit, but after a few seconds I relax. It's OK. Everyone's reacting for me.

And then I realise there's two people who aren't. They're directly in front of me and they're not moving out of the way. I try moving left, but they do too. I swerve to the right, but they do too. We're stuck. It's so silly I have to look up.

I expect to see two dumbwalkers just like me. But instead I find a young couple, very much in love and very much refusing to let go of each other's hands just to get around an inconsiderate idiot on his smartphone.

The girl gives me a look of such contempt that I quickly apologise and rush round them. That look was enough to ensure I'll never be dumbwalking again.智能機在日本的使用時間並不長，但是其蔓延速度之快—已經有超過半數的日本居民人手一部智能機。東京是一個擁擠的城市，已有警告指出在繁雜的人行橫道上，大量的行人邊走邊操控着手機，是十分危險的行爲。

現在是一個週五的下午5時，我站在世界聞名的岔口之一的澀谷十字路口上的一個咖啡店外。

這個地方每隔2分鐘，就有超過千位穿戴整齊的東京上班族和青年弄潮兒們聚集在八個岔路口，準備通過馬路，徑直迎着對方急速而走。

看上去這些行人像要撞擊在一起一樣，而實際上他們像旋轉的芭蕾舞者，繞過彼此，最終安全地到達對岸。

這情景如此令人驚歎，以致有時讓人們（包括我在內）感覺到一些十分陳舊的理念，即：這景象多麼完美的詮釋了日本社會的理念—爲了大衆的福利而行動在一起。

但是我在這的原因，並不是爲了留於驚異之中，而是希望可以看見人們撞在一起。

我想要看見商人們相互衝撞時他們的傘從手臂中飛出；看見那些純真的、穿着校服的學生將奶奶絆倒。

爲什麼現在我可能看到這番景象而一年之前看不到呢？答案非常簡單—都是因爲智能手機惹的禍。

智能機的使用人數正在日本暴漲。2012年，只有四分之一的日本人使用智能機，那時大多數的人還十分滿足於他們的日常手機。

但是人們現在意識到智能機的種種不容忽視的優勢，尤其是能用來讀報和看漫畫，日本漫畫早已走向全球，漫步到世界各個角落。

已經有超過半數的日本居民人手一部智能機，與此同時這個數量正在快速上漲。

此上漲還帶來了另一種現象的產生，即：由智能機帶來的低頭行走一族。

人們只有在盯着手機屏幕時才採用這種冷酷如冰山的步調：低着頭，伸出手臂，像一個想要獵食人類的殭屍一般。

日本的學者發現人們在玩智能機時不僅僅行走更爲緩慢，他們的視角範圍也降到了原本的5%，人們開始擔心這種現象對澀谷帶來的後果。

近期，日本手機巨頭NTT多科莫公司發佈了一個模擬實驗，展示瞭如果每個過馬路的行人都採用這種“低頭行走”模式所帶來的後果。

實驗指出，每一次，過路的行人會有400多次的碰撞，而只有36%的人能夠順利通過馬路。這樣一來，我們所熟知的那個有序的日本社會將會走向終結。

然而令人驚奇的是，對此景象最爲惱怒的竟然是美國人。

邁克爾·克拉克是一位顧問，住在日本已有20餘年，在閒暇時間，他寫了一個叫做“四國”的博客，最近該博客上雜亂地貼滿了他稱之爲“低頭行走”的內容。

這周，我在巢鴨見到了邁克爾，巢鴨位於東京，以其行走緩慢的退休人員而聞名。

他告訴我這種“低頭走路”的現象不會是一個長遠的問題。

日本的使用手機的禮節實際上比世界上其他地方要更好，在日本，幾乎很少看到人在火車上打的電話，年輕人也不敢出於個人原因而外放音樂。

在涉谷，如果低頭行走一族真的非常嚴重，警察就會開始在十字路口巡邏，呼喊人們擡起頭來。然而，除非這種情況真的發生，警察纔會轉爲大聲咆哮。

但是，智能機所引起的行走方式真的會帶來問題嗎？只有一個辦法來回答這個問題（那就是親身實踐）。所以我離開了咖啡店，走向十字路口，開始編輯郵件，我告訴自己，直到到達岸馬路對岸才能擡起頭。

我很快被人羣包圍，當人們從我身邊涌動的時候，我才意識到車流已經停止，輪到我過馬路的了。

隨着我往前移動，我開始變得緊張起來--人們的腿毫無徵兆在我眼前的躍來躍去，購物袋似乎差點要飛向我的臉上。

我知道我肯定會被撞擊，但是不過一會我就放鬆下來。沒事，他們都會對我有所反應。

同時我也發現了，有兩個人是不會碰撞到的。這些人恰好在你的前方，同時也不會改變路線。我試着往左移動，他們也左移。我向右移動，他們也右移。我們被卡住了。我不得不擡起頭來，這樣看上去很傻。

我期待看到我和一樣的兩個低頭走路的行人。但取而代之的是我看到一對年輕的夫婦，他們十分眷戀，十分抗拒僅僅爲了繞開一個盯着智能機的傻子而放開彼此的手。

那個女孩輕蔑地看了我一眼，我趕忙道歉，匆忙繞過他們。那種目光讓我十分明確：我以後再也不做“低頭行走”一族了。