PSA Shows What A Mess 1500 People Texting and Walking Would Be

A new Japanese public service announcement is warning of the dangers that come with texting and walking at the same time.

Perhaps sending a text message while driving is not a big issue in Japan, or maybe texting and walking is simply a more prevalent problem. The video, created by mobile carrier NTT Docomo, states that 1 out of every 5 people who text and walk injure themselves or end up in an accident. The video, which clocks in at over two minutes, is an animation that illustrates what would happen if 1,500 people were all attempting to text and walk at the same time through Shibuya Crossing, the intersection in front of the Shibuya Station in Tokyo.

Judging by the end result, it would get messy. However, the message's poignancy is altered by the animation itself. The 1,500 people are depicted as wooden dolls, with weird extremities and peculiar movements.

Still, there is science behind the cellphone company's point. The statistics offered in the PSA are from a study conducted by professor Kazuhiro Kozuka from the Department of Media Informatics at Aichi University of Technology. According to the professor, only 547 of the 1,500 who are texting would end up successfully walking across the street without an accident. Of the 953 remaining participants, there would be 446 collisions, 103 people who tripped and fell and 21 who dropped their phones.

Regardless of whether the message is getting across or not, a lot of people are checking out the PSA. NTT Docomo's video was uploaded on Sunday and already has over 1.2 million views.