I like the traffic light indicators on the floor when I look at my phone
I like the traffic light indicators on the floor when I look at my phone
Normally when you need to wait at a crossing because it's red you take out your phone to waste some time. But you have to be quite anxious and look up if it's already green or not, otherwise you miss the green light.
But they help you out with that here in Korea by building in the traffic light into the curb. You're looking down on your phone and see the red line left and right of it. Once it changes to green you immediately are aware of it because it's in your field of view constantly.
Great invention!
I took the background picture just outside and put the stock picture hands with a phone on top of it so you can easier visualize it how it looks like in reality.
People really take their phones out to waste time waiting for the lights to change? How long does it take for the lights to change? It's like, maybe a minute absolute maximum where I'm from -- does it take longer where you are?
Dude people are fucked. When people die in round based online games they instantly go on their phones now until the next round. Even in games that require post death teamwork and comms. I have seen the stop light thing too, even for a 20s stop. Absolutely zero ability to just do nothing for a couple seconds and look up at the real world.
Tokyo is full of meanderthals walking and biking while looking down at their phones. Standing still while waiting for the lights to change is tame.
There's even a word for it here: aruki-sumaho
Notable sightings so far in 2025:
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A pack of middle school boys all playing a mobile game while walking with their faces in their phones and blocking the sidewalk. Three abreast in marching band formation, maybe 15 of them.
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Salaryman holding a laptop and on a conference call while rushing towards a train station.
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A few face-in-tablet while walking, that always gets a smirk out of me.
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Lady in heels, approaching the upward stairs while watching a video on her phone in landscape mode, arm fully extended and airpods in. Misses a step and eats it, goes full scorpion. I was impressed she managed to hold onto her phone and keep all her teeth, she just missed chomping on a concrete step by a few cm.
Its extremely common here. Enough that I usually have to stop walking on the sidewalk and just wait for them to notice me to look up and move out of the way, you can't always side step them because they're frequently not walking straight and they'll wander across the path anyway, hence the term meanderthals.
(Edited for grammar/spelling/links)
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In huge cities there are crossings where it definitely could take longer. But for 99% of crossings otherwise, yeah, not that long that you'd need to check your phone. Its the tines we are in I guess.
In my city, some intersections you would wait maybe more than 5 minutes for the light to change if you're not downtown. Then again, I wasn't on my phone for this wait. Annoyingly, these pedestrian signals didn't have any sound when they changed, where downtown did.
Downtown wasn't so bad, though. You might still wait longer than a minute, but usually not.
Normally when you need to wait at a crossing because it’s red you take out your phone to waste some time.
Is that considered normal these days? Jesus.
I don't know where you live, but here in Seoul nobody takes out their phone out at the traffic light because most of the people have it already in the hand while walking.
See this random video I just googled of a crosswalk in Gangnam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeadHl7ugmk
It seems it's not just in Asia, random London video shows also half of the people walking with phone in the hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTxyohQ8jN0&t=11
( Other commenter commented thesame about Tokyo.l
Exactly my thought, Cant people be without their phones for one second 😅
Weird. I just pay attention to my surroundings myself.
Those are just as much of your surroundings as regular lights though
Just unnecessarily redundant ones for those of us not so addicted to our phones we can't last 20 seconds without looking at them.
I know! Maybe they need traffic lights built into phones! As you approach a traffic light, they link up with the intersection and tint your screen green and red depending on the walk/don't walk status! You'd never have to look up from your phones again!
You don't even need to pay special attention, peripheral vision and the changing sound of cars is more than enough of a hint that the light might have changed.
There are a whole lot more threats than cars at crossings that you might like to be aware of.
(And before people straw man this, it's an example selected for comedy potential, not a comprehensive list of all possible environmental hazards you might want to keep aware of.)
I like to look around at the cars going by, examine the infrastructure around the intersection like the nerd I am, and when the countdown starts (the crosswalk signals usually have a countdown until they switch to "GO") I'm looking back and forth between the signal and traffic to see who's stopping and who's trying to beat the light.
I'm not about to trust my life to a signal when so many drivers are too busy on their phones to notice the big lights in front of them shining a different color than it did a second ago.
It's a neat idea, but looking down at your phone is probably not a great idea when standing so close to a busy road.
what else is there to do? be bored for a couple minutes?
I dunno, think about something. There must be something worth thinking about in your life. Or is it only cheap, meaningless dopamine you get from staring at your phone?
Yes.
Do your crossings not make noise? When ours (south Australia) is ready to cross it's very noisy and obvious
Fun fact that you probably know: the background ‘ticking’ in the chorus of Bad Guy by Billie Eilish is the sound made by traffic lights in Sydney
I did not know that. That's pretty neat; thank you for sharing!
Nppe
Peeeeeeeewdududududududududududuh
I use to live next to a silent crossing and it threw me every time, despite crossing it twice every week day for years
Some "smart" systems extend to car and bicycle users too.
I’m glad I seem to be not the only one to be disgusted by the concept. Like, wtf? If you are addicted to the phone so much that for the couple dozen of seconds you wait, a ground light is “helpful” for you, you belong to psychiatry/addictoligy department of your nearest hospital. Jesus fucking christ.
Very elitist of you to know so much about other peoples psyche.
Yes. That's exactly what "elitism" means. 🙄
Everyone needs to be dropped in a place with no internet for 6 months.
Problem solved.
Says the guy with 1386 comments on his own instance of a fringe social media software :D
Yup, that's me. But I also put it away regularly to experience everything else the world has to offer. Sometimes for pretty extended periods of time, too. And you know, not walk out into traffic.
This just makes me sad.
I bet it works well for when the sun is in your eyes, too.
Intense sunlight could make it hard to see the lights on the ground, no?
In my opinion it wouldn’t work everywhere - I was surprised to see how orderly people were in Seoul when I was there a couple years ago. No matter how crowded, everyone was standing in lines, waiting - even if they were watching Netflix or YouTube in the meantime.
Here, we are actively warned against using phones or headsets when crossing the streets (signs painted on the street), exactly because some drivers watch TikTok and whatnot WHILE driving. I find it sad that here pedestrians have to accommodate careless drivers.
Nevertheless, I like the idea, just hope it won’t be a thing here before we can get things to be a bit more orderly on the streets.
Literally nothing works everywhere.
Fair enough
During those rare moments you're outside, it's called the "ground."
The last thing I want to focus my attention on when I'm in traffic is my phone screen.
Everyone is boomering about the damn kids these days and their phones, but this seems like a cool extra bit accessibility that happens to help people on their phones.
My city installed it on some crossing, it's pretty nice looking as well.