Clown on a unicycle: what distracted cellphone users miss
January 17th, 2010 at 1:04 pm ETToday’s NYT story about distracted pedestrians on cellphones includes this report of the recent updating of a classic psychological experiment:
One of the students dressed as a clown and unicycled around a central square on campus. About half the people walking past by themselves said they had seen the clown, and the number was slightly higher for people walking in pairs. But only 25 percent of people talking on a cellphone said they had, [Western Washington University psychology professor Ira Hyman] said…. Particularly fascinating, Mr. Hyman said, is that people walking in pairs were more than twice as likely to see the clown as were people talking on a cellphone….
Bonus fun fact: it takes about three seconds to find a picture of a clown on a unicycle on the Internet. This one is Bonkers, a 17-year-old entertainer available (with his sidekick, Mama B) to work your children’s party in the Vancouver area. (Bonus fun factoid: Vancouver is less than an hour away from Bellingham; I wonder if Bonkers was the clown involved in Dr. Hyman’s experiment?)
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Rich Mintz blogs on online fundraising and social media, American history and culture, bicycling and urbanism, food, technology, and other topics. Professionally, he's an expert in fundraising, constituency development, and social media for nonprofits, cultural organizations, cause-related marketers, and corporations. He is based in New York, where he serves as Vice President, Strategy, for 
