WASHINGTON — It’s the new way to be clumsy. Not only is distracted walking now in American’s lexicon, it’s noted as the reason behind an increasing number of emergency room visits.

“ER visits involving distracted walking … went up to 2,000 cases in the last year of the study in 2011,” said Ken Kolosh with the National Safety Council. 

After analyzing the 2013 study, Kolosh offered his take on the 11-year study of distracted walking medical visits collected by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. In that time 11,000 people were hurt while distracted walking.

“Streets or highways are an issue for distracting walking but it’s really dwarfed by the number of injuries occurring in one’s home,” Kolosh said.

It is a relatively new cause of injury that affects young and old, he said.

“You would think it would be mostly young people. We certainly see young people getting injured — 22 percent do occur to 11- to 20-year-olds,” Kolosh.

Forty-two percent of those injured were under 30 while 20 percent were over 71.