dumbwalking
UK/ˈdʌmˌwɔː.kɪŋ/US/ˈdʌmˌwɔ.kɪŋ/
dumbwalking noun: the act of walking while distracted or preoccupied by something else, often looking at a smartphone.
Noun
dumbwalking (uncountable)
- The act of walking while distracted or preoccupied by something else, often looking at a smartphone.
- 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 Shisaku that has recently been littered with posts about what he calls "dumbwalking".2014 July 14, Alex Marshall, “Japan enters the era of smartphones and 'dumbwalking'”, in BBC, archived from the original on 15 Jul 2014
- In Japan, smartphones are extremely popular, although they are often demonised in the media. The issue of ‘dumbwalking’ is a serious problem in Japan, although in Japanese it is known as arukinagara (walking whilst [on the phone]).2018, Richard S. Pinner, Augmented Communication: The Effect of Digital Devices on Face-to-Face Interactions, Springer International Publishing, page 107
Origin of dumbwalking
From dumb + walking.
Questions about dumbwalking
- What does dumbwalking mean?
- Dumbwalking means the act of walking while distracted or preoccupied by something else, often looking at a smartphone.
- What part of speech is dumbwalking?
- Dumbwalking is a noun.
- How do you pronounce dumbwalking?
- Dumbwalking is pronounced /ˈdʌmˌwɔː.kɪŋ/ (UK).
Words near dumbwalking in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dumbwalking (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “dumbwalking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dumbwalking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.