Summary #2 - Cell phones

1. Summary of "Teens and technology: managing cell phone usage"

In this article, the author discussed cell phone usage by teenagers and how to manage its misuse. When a teen has his/her own cell phone, his/her parent feels much safer. Parents are able to know the location of their children using GPS features. However, the misuse of cell phones such as sexting and late night usage may lead them to mental illness. So, the author gave a few parental guidelines to manage cell phone usage by teens. According to the author, parents should control their children by specifying phone usage duration, and checking contacts and texts. It is also a good idea to make a contract before giving a cell phone to the teenagers. Finally the author also provided some ideas to the parents to raise their children properly for using cell phones. (Hla Tum)

Reference:

Gross, G. (2014, June 21). Teens and technology: Managing cell phone usage. The Huffington Post. Retrieved February 11, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gail-gross/teens-and-technology-managing-cell-phone-usage_b_5187412.html

2. Summary

In this article, the author talked about the balancing of advantages and disadvantage sof using cell phones in classrooms based on some studies. The excessive use of cell phones in classrooms was so frustrating for an ESL teacher that it led her to quit her job. She admitted that it was getting difficult to keep students attentive in class for easily accessible very funny YouTube videos. A study shows that 88% of teenage Americans have the opportunity to use cell phone (mostly smartphones), and 93% of them go online daily from once to almost all the time. Another study shows that the distraction for cell phones may cause poor performance in class. However, some institutions are keen to use cell phones/media to compete in global markets despite the distraction issue. For example, cell phones have lots of interesting applications which are useful in Physics lab to collect data, in English class to discuss things in class, mastering foreign languages, etc. Parents are also in favor of using cell phones in school to keep connected with their children. In these circumstances, it is difficult to prohibit cell phones in classrooms. It is necessary to make class lectures interesting enough to compete with virtual media. (Nazir)

Reference

Matchan, L. (2015, June 16). Schools seek balance for cell phones in class: Are they a teaching tool or distraction? The Boston Globe. Retrieved on 07 February, 2016. https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/style/2015/06/15/cellphones-school-teaching-tool-distraction/OzHjXyL7VVIXV1AEkeYTiJ/story.html

3. Summary

In this article, Professor Ira Hyman from Western Washington explains his examination of how young adults use their cellphones to control their social relationships. Ira and his team observe how often people, in the wide range of age from 18 to 68, give and receive either messages or calls on phones. Although each age division has no more than 10 calls per day, there is a significant difference between young and old groups in texting. Young adults prefer to communicate via text messages in most of the cases, from going to church to hanging out with friends, while older people tend to call or email. Even in special circumstances, ending up a romantic relationship for example, young people also use text messages to tell their partners about the decision. Moreover, young people become less patient in waiting for responses because texting is easier than faster than conventional conversations. In the end, cellphones are simply the effective tools that young people use to manage their social interactions. (Hoa)

Reference:

Hyman, Ira. (2014, January 26). Cellphones are changing social interaction: Breaking up by text message. Psychologytoday. Retrieved on February 8, 2016, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-mishaps/201401/cell-phones-are-changing-social-interaction

4. Summary of "College students’ test scores suffer with cell phone use in class, Longwood researcher finds"
According to this article, whenever students check their phone during the class that makes their test grade decrease. After class, Dr. Bjornsen surveyed his students how often they used cell phone in the class. The survey was taken for a year and 218 students were involved. Students score can be changed just using cell phones 4-5 times during the class. He found that students cannot pay attention while using cell phones, because they were not able to fully focus on lecture. Dr. Bjornsen said this is not a surprising for him; however, students cannot believe this result. Believe or not, the more students use cell phones, the lower score they get. (Jimin)

Bjornsen, Chris. (2015, August 27), College students’ test scores suffer with cell phone use in class, Longwood researcher finds. Longwood University. Retrieved on February 11, 2016, from http://www.longwood.edu/2015releases_62426.htm

5. Summary

In this article, the authors talked about prevalence and correlates of cell phone use among Texas drivers during 2011 -2013. [1] They conducted a series of surveys at University of Texas medical and academic institutions in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, and Brownsville respectively. Among these three years, a random weekday in October from 10:30 – 11:15 am was selected to perform these surveys. Two professional observers settled down to record phenomenon of cell phone use while driving, when vehicles stopped during each red light interval on a sidewalk corner of intersection. Based on 1280 observations records, the authors got conclusions. Prevalence of cell phone talking while driving among drivers in major medical and academic campuses in Texas tended to decrease from 2011 to 2013; however, texting while driving assumed a rising from 2011 to 2013. Female drivers who had cell phone conversations and texting were more than those happened among male drivers. Younger and middle age drivers preferred to have cell phone use while driving, compared with older drivers; what’s more, the youngest drivers presented the highest odds of cell phone conversations and texting. (Yu)

Reference
Wilkinson. M. L. (2015, February). Prevalence and correlates of cell phone use among Texas drivers. Elsevier. Retrieved on Feb, 24, 2015, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335515000200

6. Summary

In this article, Drews et al. (2004) firstly stated the fact that, prior studies have found out that cell phone conversation while driving impairs driving performance of both younger adults and older adults. However, whether the difference between cell phone conversation and conversation with a passenger exists is still unknown. Thus, Drews et al. (2004) conducted an experiment to solve this problem and tried to find out what the real difference is. In their experiment, they chose 96 adults (49 males and 47 females), and compared their responses to highway exits among conversing on a cell phone, conversing with a passenger and driving only by using a driving simulation system called “PatrolSim™ High-fidelity Driving Simulator”. And they chose “close call stories”, which is defined as stories about times when “your life was threatened”, as conversation task, since it creates a situation which comes as close as possible to naturalistic conversations (Drews, et al., 2004). Collected data showed that drivers who had cell phone conversations were four times more to fail in correctively responding to the highway exits in the system than drivers who had conversations with passengers. While, there were no differences in driving performance between drivers in the passenger condition and driving only condition. Drews et al. (2004) concluded that since the passenger conversing with driver shares the same situation as the driver, “the passenger collaborates driving safely by referring to traffic and thus maintain a higher level of shared situation awareness something a person on the other end of a cell-phone cannot do”. (Siyu)

Reference

Drews, F. A., Pasupathi, M., and Strayer, D. L. (2004). Passenger and Cell-phone Conversations in Simulated Driving: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 48th Annual Meeting, p. 2210-2212.

7. Summary of "Adult Attitudes Toward the Cell Phone"

The author in this article talks about adult attitudes towards cell phones. Through a survey that the author conducted, the author revealed a number of attitudes. Lenhart (2016) states that 91% of the people who took her survey say that cell phones make them feel safe because they know that they can get help more easily and faster. She mentions that it was mostly women out of the 91% who said that they felt safer. In addition, the survey revealed that 88%, especially those who were parents or adults with a college education, mentioned that cell phones make the activity of managing their life and making arrangements easier and therefore they like cell phones. Also, Lenhart states that 86% say that they think that it is rude when people constantly look at or check their phones during a conversation or meeting. The author reports that it is more likely that people who have a high income, who have high education, who are women, or who are white feel that checking on your phone is rude. The author also reports that the 42% of the people who took the survey felt annoyed when they received a text message or phone call when they were engaged in something else. Finally, the author reports that 39% mentioned that they use their cell phones when they feel bored. (Abdullah)

Reference

A., Lenhart. (2010, September 02). Part three: Adult attitudes toward the cell phone. Internet, science & tech. Retrieved on Feb 11, 2016 from http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/09/02/part-three-adult-attitudes-towards-the-cell-phone/