A study
on the peoples’ perceptions on the effects of excessive cellphone usage
Submitted
by Hla Tun
Abstract
In our daily life,
cellphones are the most efficient and the fastest tools to communicate verbally
with each other. However, modern cellphones are not limited to the verbal
communication. The multipurpose features of these smartphones are now
considered as a necessity rather than a convenience. This article contains the
peoples’ perceptions on cellphone usage in their daily lives. In this regard,
we prepared a survey questionnaire based on the literature review and
hypotheses. Based on the survey questionnaire, we conducted a survey in TTU and
Lubbock community of Texas to understand peoples’ perception. A total of 229
surveys were conducted for this purpose. After conducting the survey, we
analyzed the data and verified our hypotheses. We found that about 58% of the
cellphone owners used cellphones for at least 3 hours or more in every
day. It was also surprising to find that
about 60% students did not believe it would hurt their grades. Besides this, we
also found some interesting results regarding the use of cellphones while
driving and some other findings based on the hypotheses.
Introduction
Cellphones are extremely
popular and useful electronic devices in our daily lives. In modern life, the
use of cellphones is not limited to voice transmission. The smartphones are
also used to access various features such as GPS, email, internet, world news,
games and even video chat with others. Just like a portable computer, cellphone
brings the technological world into the palm of the hand. However, like other
technologies, cellphone has both advantages and disadvantages.
The excessive usage of
cellphones/smartphones affects health and personality issues such as stress,
depression, sleep disturbance or insomnia (Gross, 2014; Lazarus, 2015).
Furthermore, the improper usage of cellphones also causes road accidents,
psychological tortures (e.g. blackmailing, threatening etc.) and distraction
from many important things (Gross, 2014; Luce, 2011). Especially, the young
generations are very much getting addicted to it. They cannot imagine a single
moment without their cellphones. They use cellphones everywhere. It can be
distracting from many important events of a person’s life such as studying,
driving, sleeping, and even crossing the street. It has been found that 64% of
teens use cellphones to text while 23% of teens use cellphones to check social
networking sites during the class (Lenhart, 2012). Almost 80% of people who own
cellphones check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up (Kuznekoff &
Titsworth, 2013). So, nomophobia (fear of being out of a mobile device) is
recently a serious enough problem to study.
In this project, our main
objective was to study the cellphone usage by students in Texas Tech University
(TTU) in Lubbock, Texas. In this regard, we decided to do a survey on the TTU
students. The survey mainly focused on
the cellphone usage while driving, during class lecture and during social
interactions. After the survey, we represented our results in a statistical
form. Finally, we discussed the impact of cellphones on the students of TTU.
Literature review and hypotheses
The modern smartphones
have a lot of features and applications. So, younger adults like to use their
phones for many purposes other than voice communication. According to the Pew
Research Center survey of US adults, 87% of smartphone owners of the younger
adults (ages 18 to 29) listen to online radio or music on their phones
(Anderson, 2016). In a separate study in 2015, the Pew Research Center
conducted another survey across the 40 countries of the world and found that
about three-quarters of cellphone owners use social networking sites such as
Facebook and Twitter (Poushter, 2016). In the United States, 99% of cellphone
owners (ages 18-34 years) use internet. They use cellphones for browsing,
checking emails, texting, calling, banking etc. In 2015, Time Magazine reported
that people in the United States check their phones on average 46 times a day
(Eadicicco, 2015). This number includes people of all ages. However, this
number varies based on the cellphone owners’ age group. Young people check
cellphones very often compared to older people. It was found that 18-24-year-old
Americans check their cellphones 74 times per day, while people within the ages
of 25-34 and 35-44 check their phones 50 and 35 times a day, respectively.
According to a set of
studies by Andrew K. Przybylski and Netta Weinstein of the University of Essex,
cellphone usage may reduce social consciousness and it can hurt our close
relationships (Lin, 2012). Their studies show that having a cellphone nearby
affects the building-blocks of relationships such as interpersonal trust,
closeness, empathy etc. Although many people think excessive use of cellphone
is reducing social interactions, the younger adults believe it is generally
acceptable to use cellphones for various tasks in social situations such as
social networking, arranging to get together, etc. About 52% of young American
adults used their cellphones to check their friends’ activities, while 49% of
younger cellphone owners use phones to arrange a get together (Rainie, 2015).
Some of the most
advantageous features of modern smartphone include GPS tracking, checking
emails, video call, etc. However like other technologies, the cell phone has
both advantages and disadvantages. The improper usage of cell phones also
causes incidents like psychological tortures (e.g. blackmailing, threatening
etc.), road accidents and distraction of many people (Ahmed, 2016; Luce, 2011).
In 2015, Erie Insurance conducted a survey where they found that one-third of
the drivers admitted to texting while driving and three quarters of the people
reported that they saw others texting while driving (Knapp, 2015). When a
driver does texting, their eyes are off the road for 5 seconds. While driving
at 55 mph, 5 seconds is enough time to cover the length of a football field.
According to the National Safety Council’s annual injury and fatality report in
2014, 26% of the nation’s car accidents are caused because of the use of
cellphone while driving (Kratsas, 2014). The new study found that, drivers
talking on cellphones are 18% slower to hit the brakes (Britt, 2005).
On the other hand, many
students use mobile phones to check text messages and social networking sites
during the class. About 60% of teens with cellphones do texting during the
class hours (Lenhart, 2012). The use of cellphones distracts the students from
the lecture and it negatively impacts their academic career. Kuznekoff and
Titsworth (2013) found that students who do not use cellphone during the class
hour can write 93% more outstanding answers than the students who use
cellphones in class. The researchers at the University of Texas and Louisiana
State University found that test scores increased by 6% when they banned
cellphones (Kedmey, 2015). In our survey, we wanted to study the purpose and
frequency of cellphone usage during the class hour.
The excessive usage of
smartphones may also affect health issues such as cancer to the brain or other
organs (Lazarus, 2015). The researchers from Wayne State University in the U.S.
and Karolinska Institute in Sweden reported that the radio-frequency of mobile
devices causes sleep disorder (Hall & Spurlock, 2013). Although many people
are aware of it still they use cellphones excessively. In our survey, we wanted
to study whether people were aware of it.
The usage of cellphone
increases exponentially with the increased functionality of cellphones. So,
nomophobia (fear of being out of mobile device) is recently a serious problem.
Many people think they are addicted to smartphones which may affect their
personality issues. The cellphone devices activate the release of serotonin and
dopamine which control the human brain to feel something very addictive
(Andersen, 2015). The buzzing notifications or vibrations of the cellphone
insist its user check it and the user checks it almost unintentionally.
In this study, we are
going to conduct a survey on the TTU students. The questionnaires for the
survey were prepared to observe the cellphone usage and its impact on our
academic, social and personal life. Based on the literature review, I believed,
we would be able to find the following results after the survey:
1. About
80% of cellphone owners would admit they spend around 1-2 hours on the
cellphone every day.
2. I
believed about two thirds of the people would admit that excessive use of
cellphone reduces the real-life social interactions.
3. I
thought, about 60% of people would admit that they checked cellphones while
driving, although they knew it was dangerous.
4. More
than half of the students would say that they checked their phone during the
class even though they knew it hurt their grades.
5. More
than 70% people would admit that the excessive use of cellphone caused their sleep
problems.
6. At
least one-third of the female students may feel insecure when their cellphones
die.
Methods
As a project requirement
for ESL 5315 course, the whole class decided to study either ‘cellphone usage’
or ‘intercultural marriage’. I chose to study cellphone usage in our daily
lives. For this purpose, I along with my classmates reviewed literature to
learn about the influence of cellphones in our daily lives. Based on the
literature review, we were able to hypothesize several possibilities in this
study. To validate our hypotheses, we planned to conduct a survey in Lubbock,
Texas.
Then the whole class (both
cellphone group and intercultural marriage group) prepared several
questionnaires for the survey. The questionnaires were finalized after several
discussions among the entire class. We were interested to know this information
based on gender, age, relationship status, nationality and their major or
occupations. So, we included these five questions at the beginning of the
survey questionnaires. Along with these questions, the survey contained 15
questions on cellphones and 12 questions on intercultural marriage. For
statistical study purposes both ‘cellphone’ and ‘intercultural marriage’ groups
decided to include all questions in a single survey so that we could get more
data. Therefore, instead of conducting the survey separately, we carried out
the survey in a combined way.
Before the survey, we
suspected that the Americans’ point of view may be different from that of the
internationals, especially with regard to the intercultural marriage. So, every
student of the class conducted at least 13 surveys including 6 American males,
6 American females and the surveyor himself. During the survey, we found out
some printing mistakes and a few vague questions. As an example, in question
number 20, we did not consider if someone disagreed with the question. So
during the survey, a few people asked about that and I told them to write down
their opinions if they did not agree with the question.
After everyone in the
class conducted at least 13 surveys, we decided to consolidate all the survey
data into one accessible source. So, a similar online survey questionnaire was
prepared where everyone could input their collected survey data. So after the
survey, we recorded our survey data in the online survey link in order to
calculate the overall result of the survey. However, a few problems were found
when we tried to put our collected survey information into the online portal.
In the online portal, the audience could not skip any questions, while most of
the audience did not answer one or two questions. As an example, the last
question of the survey said, “If you are in an intercultural marriage, would
you do it again, if you could go to the past”. The options given for this
question was either yes or no. However, many people did not answer this
question because this question was not applicable to them. Since in the online
portal, we were not allowed to proceed to the further step without answering
this, we put either yes or no, which may hamper the reliability of the result.
Finally, after completing
the online data processing we were able to analyze the survey and it helped us
to validate our hypotheses and to determine whether these were confirmed or not.
Results
105 males and 124 females
participated in our survey. A lot of factors such as ages, location of the
survey, occupations or majors, etc. might have affected our survey.
Furthermore, the number of participants was very low and most of the surveys
were conducted on the TTU campus. So it was hard to conclude that our survey
data was very accurate. However, it gave us some basic ideas on the cellphone usage
and observation of the people.
I believed that most of the TTU community cellphone
owners spent at least 1-2 hours on the cellphone every day. My hypothesis was
confirmed. After conducting the survey, we found that 90.4% of cellphone owners
used it at least 1-2 hours per day. From the graph, we can see that the amount
of time spent on cellphone per day was more or less the same for both male and
female participants. The graph also shows that 57.6% of cellphone owners spent
3 hours or more in every day.
In
my last hypothesis, I thought that at least one-third of the female students
might feel insecure when their cellphone had died. My hypothesis was not
confirmed. They felt more annoyed than insecure. In our survey, 124 females
participated and about 65% of them felt annoyed when their cellphone had died.
Only 21.8% of the female participants felt insecure, which was slightly more
than the male participants. On the other hand, only 14.3% of male participants
also felt insecure when their cellphones had died. Furthermore, 13.5%
participants did not have any feelings when their cellphone died. About 10% of
the survey participants mentioned they felt like they had lost their limbs when
their cellphone died. It is also worthy to mention that the feelings of males
and females were almost same in this concern.
Discussions
In
this research, our main objective was to study the perception of the TTU
students and the Lubbock community on the usage of the cellphone in their daily
lives.
The amount of time spent
on the cellphone per day is the same for both males and females. More than half
of the cellphone users spend 3-4 hours on cellphone. Although people use the cellphone
for many important purposes, the excessive usage of cellphone may hamper their
daily activities such as defensive driving, social interaction, attention to
their work, studying etc. Most of the people cannot think a single moment
without cellphone. Even on a date, instead of talking to each other people
continuously use cellphones.
One of the important
studies in this research was to study the cellphone usage while driving. It was
very surprising that a lot of people use cellphones while driving, even though
they know it’s dangerous. Although some people use their cellphone as a GPS,
many others use it for calling, texting or checking internet while driving.
This may cause severe road accidents. Based on this result, I think it will be
better for every person if cellphone is prohibited while driving.
Another important
observation of the study was to learn about the cellphone usage in the
classrooms. Most of the students checked cellphones in the classroom and they
did not agree that it would affect their result. However, I think it might
hamper their attention as well as their grades. As I reported in the
‘Literature review’ section, research showed that the test scores were improved
when the school banned using cellphones. So, in my opinion, the result of an
attentive student and a student who constantly checks his cellphone will never
be the same.
In this research study, we
did our best to make the survey very informative and reliable. However, there
was ample scope to improve our survey data. First of all, the number of
participants was very low due to the shortage of the survey period. If we had at
least one or two months, we would be able to do a lot of surveys and our data
would be statistically more reliable than at present. Most of the data were
taken from the TTU students, so the data mostly reflected the perception of the
young generations. It would be better if we got more data from the non-academic
participants. Furthermore, the number of participants outside TTU was very low
compared to the number of student participants. Moreover, some options of the
survey questionnaire were slightly confusing to the participants. We also faced
some problems while we put our survey data into the online portal. However,
because of the shortage of time we were not able to fix the problem. So, in my
opinion if we can solve these problems, we will be able to get more reliable
data.
Although the number of
participants was very low, it is worthy to mention that this research study
gives some insight and general idea of the cellphone usage in our TTU and
Lubbock community.
Conclusion
The survey was mainly
focused on the Americans’ point of view regarding cell phone usage in their
daily life. About 85% of the total participants were Americans. From the survey, we found that majority of people
spent a lots of time on their cellphone. People believe that the excess use of
cellphones negatively affects their personal lives. People now spend more time
in their cellphone than in real-life face to face interactions. Furthermore,
the unsafe driving behavior using cellphones for texting and browsing may cause
a lot of road accidents. It is surprising that people do not stop using
cellphones while driving even though they know it is dangerous. Furthermore,
the excessive usage of cellphone may also affect the students’ grades although
more than half of the students did not admit it in our survey. As shown in the
literature review, a lot of studies reported that the grades suffer with the
cellphone usage in class. But still a lot of students did not recognize this
fact. It is true that the result of our survey was not sufficient enough to
boldly conclude to take any actions against using cellphone excessively. However,
it gives some basic ideas to learn how the cellphone impacts our daily lives. I
guess if we had more time to do the survey we would probably see these
statistics would be more or less the same. Finally, I would like to say that
the smartphones are used as a connecting hub to the whole world. However, one
should use them effectively, not excessively so that they will not take away
the precious moments of our lives.
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