When walking to class or waiting for the bus, some students like to tune out their surroundings by walking to the beat of their favorite song. It may seem harmless, but a new study said it is not.

A new study, which appeared in the British Medical Journal, listed 116 reports of injuries involving pedestrians wearing headphones over the last eight years. According to the BMJ article, 70 percent of the headphone-related incidents resulted in death. However, students can still be seen walking around campus with their headphones on.

“Walking in silence is kind of boring,” freshman Cole Harris said.

But Harris said that he tries to stay alert by keeping the volume low, especially in high-traffic areas where headphones can drown out outside noises.

Clinical biology professor Jadin Jackson said that headphones can be dangerous.

“When you are wearing headphones, it’s kind of a double-whammy because they are filtering out the sounds of the traffic…and the sounds of the environment around you,” Jackson said. “At the same time, they’re subtracting away from your own attention so that you have less attention available to sort of put on whatever else is in your environment.”

While Harris said that headphones can be dangerous, he finds other things to be more distracting.

“It’s been more dangerous for me to have my hood up…because I actually have to turn my head,” Harris said.

The study also found that more than half the reports involved a pedestrian being hit by a train. Even more alarming, in one-third of those cases, there was a warning signal.

“I’ve made a point of making sure that I look around more when I’m wearing headphones because I know that I can’t hear as well,” Harris said.

Kristopher Jobe can be reached at jobe1276@stthomas.edu.