Research Paper on
Attitudes toward Cell phone Use among TTU Students
By Effah Morad "Eve"
_____________________________________________________________
Abstract
The objective of this project was to find out about Texas
Tech University (TTU) students’ attitudes toward cellphone use, whether or not
they are conscious about the dangers of using cellphones all the time, and the
common reasons for students to use cellphones constantly. Some people might not
be aware that turning to their phone frequently, with or without intention to
check their social media accounts, texting or speaking, may result in their
suffering from cellphone overuse or addiction. When people check their
cellphone compulsively, they create a hook or a habit. Therefore, the more they
use cellphones, the stronger the urge to keep checking their phones. As an
Academic Writing class at TTU, we conducted a survey to discover more about
this matter, and the results were in keeping with our hypotheses. Some TTU
students tend to use cellphones more than others for different reasons, and the
number of users varies between male and female students.
Introduction
The increased usage of technology and cellphones is a
controversial topic nowadays. We use our cellphones or smartphones to do
multiple tasks or as a source for our entertainment. We call, text, check our
emails; primarily cellphones are what link us to the world. The popularity of
cellphones has increased exponentially among people from different ages, yet
overuse or addiction has caused many issues such as in classrooms, in road
safety, and in relationships.
We could define addiction as holding the phone in
hand all the time, tapping the screen absentmindedly, checking the calendar,
emails, or social accounts, or just playing games. Our group of nine students
from the Academic Writing class at Texas Tech University (TTU) wanted to
discover TTU students’ opinion regarding these matters.
Even though there are many advantages to having smartphones,
there are many negative implications as well. In a classroom, for example,
young people who are addicted to their cellphones, face a hard time not using
them or fully focusing in class. As result of this, students lose scores for
not participating or paying attention in the classroom. According to a survey
done by Dr. Bjornsen with 218 students from his class about cellphones,
students check their smartphones 45 times during the class period (Bjornsen,
2015). Consequently, students’ grades decrease and they are often not aware of
this fact.
Besides, in everyday news we hear about car accidents and
how cellphones have become one of the chief reasons behind car accidents.
Sometimes car accidents happen because the drivers are not paying attention to
their surroundings while driving. Furthermore, pedestrians do the same while
walking without watching their steps or whether there are cars passing beside
them. Young people are prone to be more careless because they always listen to
music, text, play games, or surf the Internet. They are not aware of the fact
that a person can die in the blink of an eye. In 2011, using cellphones in 33
states in the United States was forbidden (Lyden, 2011). Indeed, cellphones
users should monitor their usage, which might make a difference in the number
of lives lost to careless driving or walking on the road.
Literature review
We were presented with a short survey over self reported cell phone use and attitudes among TTU students. Due to the technology
nowadays, the world has become akin to a small village. Wherever one goes, one
can see users of cellphones and smartphones. People, especially teens, are
always on their phone playing games, texting, and interacting with their
friends on social networks, while ignoring their surroundings. Addiction to
cellphones has increased rapidly in the past few years and this matter has
caused plenty of car accidents or near crashes, because people text or talk
while driving. Strayer et al. (n.d) stated that using cellphones while driving
reduces the driver’s performance and impairs their awareness of what is
happening around them. Another study showed that using the phone and driving
simultaneously, the drivers do not control the speed limit, even if they think
they could maintain it, and that increases the risk of car accidents by 46
times (Lee, 2013). This means individuals, who text or talk and drive are not
capable of monitoring their minds and focusing on two tasks at a time, driving
and using cellphones. Based on the literature we predict the following
responses.
Kowalski (2014) brings up gender differences and cell phone
use, where men tend to use their cell phones for entertainment and information
purposes. This may include looking up the location of a place using GPS or
playing flash media games. Women, on the other hand, tend to use their phones to maintain relationships. This may include
checking social media forums like Facebook updates and posts or Snapchat
messages, and sending and reading texts. To prove that drivers do not focus on
the road while using their phones, Drews et al. (2004) conducted an experiment
to figure out how men and women drivers deal with highway exits. There were a
total of 96 participants in this experiment, 49 male and 47 female, and they
were examined for their performance while talking on the phone or talking with
another passenger. The results showed that drivers who talked on their
cellphones failed to react to the highway exits 4 times more than drivers who
talked with other passengers. Though both are dangerous things to do, the
survey results are more unfavorable for drivers that use cellphones. A survey
by Seo and Torabi (2004) was also administered on the same topic, and the
result showed that 86% of the survey’s participants occasionally checked their
phone while driving. This means that the use of cellphones while driving
negatively affects the driver's’ performance.
People’s attitudes toward using cellphones while driving
varied depending on their age. The younger the student, the stronger the
reported agitation will be. Most students will report feeling at least
insecure, while we suspect many will even report having the feeling of losing a
limb (Alleyne, 2011). Considering that female students use the cell phone
primarily for relationship purposes, we suspected they would have a greater
tendency to report the strongest level of agitation, or feeling of losing a
limb. It also seems that young people perceive use of cellphones less riskier
than what it actually is. A survey was conducted on teens’ attitude toward
texting and driving, and it was found that teens believed it to be less risky
than drinking and driving. Copeland (2010) pointed out that teens between 14 to
17 years of age are not aware of the danger of texting and driving. Collisions
happen in a blink of an eye; when the driver looks at the phone’s screen, and
uses one hand on the wheel; that is the big reason for crashes. Wallace (2015)
stated that teens sometimes mimic their parents’ attitude and use their phone
while driving. She pointed out that when teens see their parents using cellphones
while driving, they believe it is okay to do the same without realizing the bad
effect this action will have on them in the future.
Students may be unaware of how frequently they are checking
their phones. If they are aware, they may not be willing to admit to themselves
just how much they are doing so. When it comes to harmful and habitual
behavior, like drug or alcohol use, the addict is often in denial and/or
unaware of how much the habit has become a problem. Similarly, cellphones
affect people’s performance not only while driving, but also their attention in
classrooms. Most of the teachers find it hard to control students’ behaviors
when using cellphones and to keep them attentive in the classroom, yet it is a
big matter regarding their grades. Matchan (2015) mentioned two studies about
the fact of using cellphones in classrooms. The first study showed that 88% of
American teenagers use their smartphones most of the time, and 93% use
smartphones all the time. The second study revealed that cellphones addiction
led to low performance in classroom. Nonetheless, due to the convenience of
cellphones for entertainment for example watching movies, chatting with
friends, and playing games people easily get addicted without being aware of
that, and this might lead to serious health issues such as sleep disturbance,
stress and other mental health problems. Sara Thomee (2011) did a study at
University of Gothenburg, Sweden, on the connection between health and
technology and how that has an impact on those who are hooked to mobile phones.
The results showed that people who use cell phones all day long have trouble
with stress, insomnia and depression. The outcomes revealed that women are
different from men in having trouble with depressive symptoms more than
sleeping problems. In addition, Veeravagu (2015), in his article entitled Berkeley says Cell Phones Cause Tumors, shows
concerns over the nonionizing electromagnetic fields of cellphones that could
potentially result in various forms of brain tumors. He cites an ordinance
passed by California that bans phone retailers from selling their products
without a warning about potential exposure to radiation, and several other
studies that were done to find if there is a true relationship between cellphones
and brain tumors, due to our addiction to cellphones. This means that even if
people do not notice any current symptoms, it does not mean that it will not
harm them eventually.
Many claims about the benefits and negative consequences
regarding social interaction have been made and observed. Whether or not
students would report that cell phones are harming social interaction depends
on their perspectives of what social interaction looks like and should entail.
We predicted many would feel that it has hurt people’s ability to have
inperson conversations. However, many may feel that they can communicate
socially in ways they would not be able to without a phone, and that this gives
them an advantage in their ability to socialize. Texting and social media provide
the ability to communicate with friends, family, and strangers easily and
quickly. People can keep themselves updated with photos of friends and family
without having to meet in person, and see things they would otherwise miss.
Cellphones have a lot of advantages that make people still use them, such as in
social relationships and interacting with others from different generations.
“Cyber Seniors” is a name of a small project that was invented by Julia Rutland
(2016, February 6). She liked the idea of helping elderly people dealing with
their cellphones. Julia and her friend enjoy helping seniors for one hour every
Tuesday at a park in her city. Indeed, volunteering to help others is a great
thing that someone can do to help others especially people who do not have
anyone to look after them (Andersen, 2015).
Hypotheses
For this study, we created six hypotheses related to the
survey questions and what we want to find out more about. In our first
hypothesis we assumed male students would report checking their phones while
driving for GPS and texting, while female students would report using it for
social media and texting. In our second and third hypotheses we predicted that
students would report that they do not check their cellphones very much while in
class or while driving, and that most undergraduate students would report being
severely agitated when their cellphone battery died. In our fourth hypothesis
we predicted that students would either report that they do not believe
checking their cell phone during class hurts their grades, or report that they
think it is extremely dangerous. In our fifth and sixth hypotheses we predicted
that 60% of TTU students have helped or taught a member of their family how to
use applications or do tasks on cellphones or just about cellphones usage in
general, and that students would be evenly divided on reporting whether or not
they feel that cell phone use is reducing social interaction.
Methodology
The researcher’s purpose in conducting this study was to
discern opinions about cell phone use and attitudes among TTU students. We made
a general statement for the cellphone group, which was to explore TTU opinions
about cellphones usage in their daily lives, but more specifically what each
one from the group would focus on. Each one from the group created six
hypotheses and based on them we designed the survey questions. As a group
working on discovering the aspect of cellphone usage in classroom, while
driving, and in relationships, we made a survey that included a paper version
and an online version, for a total of fifteen questions. As a class we agreed
to select six international students, six American males, six American females,
and we would take it ourselves, too. We intended to find out what TTU students’
perspectives were about cellphone usage in the three previous situations. We
created questions that targeted specific areas that we desired to explore. For
example, we came up with the following questions: “How many times do you check
your phone in an average 50minute class,?” “When you are driving on the open
road, how often do you check or use your phone?,” which would reveal whether
TTU students are addicted to their cellphones or not in these two situations.
Moreover, we designed questions that focused on the purpose of using cellphone
in class or while driving, such as asking, “What is usually your purpose of
using the cell phone in class?” and “What is your purpose in using cell phones
while driving?”
In the survey, TTU students selected what applied to them
from multiple choices, which included GPS, texting, speaking, social media,
music, or never use phone. We also made questions that asked about whether they
could admit the dangers of using cellphones while driving and, based on that,
when they use it. For example, “Do you feel using the phone when driving is
wrong or dangerous?” And “When you are driving in Lubbock, how often do you
check or use your phone?” The choices were “Yes/No” for the first one and
“Never, only when stopped, occasionally, or a lot” for the second one. Based on
the results, we could determine that TTU students would admit just how much
they were using their phones. On the other hand, we also wanted to see whether
students of different ages would have different opinions about cellphones. We
agreed that everyone in class should take the survey including the instructor,
the teaching assistants, visiting scholars, and the students themselves. We
also agreed that after collecting all surveys we would put them online so that
we could see the bigger picture of the entered data in graphs. However, this
paper is not a formal research paper, and the limited number of the
participants and survey questions may affect the outcome or our expectation of
the results.
Results
This study evaluated the cell phone use and attitudes among
TTU students. A total of 229 American and international students at Texas Tech
University participated in this informal study. This section contains all the
data collected for the online survey and presents the reported answers, even
nonsignificant ones. It would be prudent to note that this survey was
selfreporting and relied heavily on students’ honesty and/or realization of
habitual behavior, and therefore, may or may not represent their actual
practices. The data was analyzed in a twoway analysis of variance, with gender
differences (male versus female) for some hypotheses, and between age groups
(1822 versus 2327 versus 2835 versus >35) for other hypotheses. What
follows are the six hypotheses that we created and under each one we will
mention whether our expectations were confirmed or not.
The first hypothesis was that we suspected male students
would report they checked their phones while driving for GPS and texting, while
female students would report using it for social media and texting. The
question related to it in the survey was “What do you use the phone for while
in the car?” we started analyzing the data for this question by calculating the
number of the gender of the participants and what choices they made, because
the Survey Planet showed the result generally not specifying the number of men
and women in each question result. For example, the total of the participants
who chose GPS was 163 out of 229, and 122 out of 229 for music; but considering
the hypothesis was related to gender, this did not tell me if my assumptions
were correct. (See figure 1) However, we recalculated the number of males and
females to measure the difference between them, and the outcomes showed variance
between men and women in the reported purpose they used their cellphones for.
73 of males and 85 of females reported using GPS while driving. Regarding the
use of cellphones for texting, 37 of males used cellphones for texting as
against 41 of females for the same purpose. As regarding talking on the phone
while driving, the results were similar. 32 of males and 37 of females reported
using the phone for speaking while driving. Both men’s and women’s rates were
slightly different in music with 52 of males and 68 of females, 8 of males and
11 of females for social media purpose, and 5 of the total males and 8 of
females reported never to use the phone while driving.
Considering that 73 of the participants were males and 85
were females, we can see that my hypothesis that more males used the phone for
GPS than females was not correct. For texting, 37 males and 41 females out of
229 claimed to use the phone for texting. While I expected an even number for
this, we did expect the number of total participants using the phone for these
purposes while driving to be higher. My expectation for use of phone for social
media purposes was backed up by reported results. We expected females to report
using the phone for this purpose. After going through the results again and
examining the 229 responses, there were eleven female participants and eight
male participants who claimed to use the phone for this purpose while driving.
It is possible that people were not honest in reporting their use, and it
should be noted that many phones have an app that will alert the user via text
message of any social media updates, so probably they don’t have to really go
to the website and check.
On the second hypothesis we predicted that students would
report that they do not check their cellphones very much while in class or
while driving. The results backed up this hypothesis. About 75% of students
reported that they checked their phone 03 times during a 50minute class
period (See figure 2). 70% of students said that they either never checked
their phone, or checked their phone only when stopping while driving in
Lubbock. However, when asked about phone usage on an open road, about 50% said
“never” or “only when stopped.” The other 50% was divided into 44.1% claiming
to only check the phone occasionally, and 4.8% reporting to check their phone a
lot. This data still supports our hypothesis, but the usage did increase when
going from in town to on a farm road or highway.
The third hypothesis we predicted was that most
undergraduate students would report to having severe agitation when their cell
phone battery died. The question related to this one in the survey was “How do
you feel when your cell phone has died?” Due to multiple choiceanswers and the
total number of the participants, which were over 229, we analyzed the data by
distinguishing between men and women and the age of the participants. We
suspected that students with age 22 or under22 are undergraduate students. We
did expect the number of total undergrads having severe agitation when their
cell phone died to be higher. After analyzing the results, the total number of
TTU students with age 22 and younger was 132 participants; 53 males and 79
females. Whereas the number of students above 22 was 107; 30 males and 32
females for the age range 23 – 27, 17 males and 15 females for ages 28 – 35,
and lastly 5 males and 8 females for age 35 and older.
For my fourth hypothesis, we predicted that students would
report that they did not think that using the phone while in class would hurt
their grades, or that using it while driving was dangerous. My predictions
regarding in class use matched the data. 58.1% of students believed that using
the phone in class did not affect their grades. We see now that the first part
of this hypothesis pertaining to inclass usage was worded in a way that makes
it a bit difficult to match the data with our prediction. Nevertheless, the
data still seems to reflect that my prediction was correct. 35.8% of students
claimed using the phone while driving was always dangerous, 27.9 % said it is
usually dangerous, and 14.4% said it was often dangerous.
For the fifth hypothesis we predicted that 60%, slightly
more than half, would report teaching older family members to use the phone. The
results were slightly higher than that, totaling to 72.9%. However, for my last
hypothesis, we predicted students would be evenly divided on whether or not
they thought that excessive use of cell phones was reducing social interaction
based on their views of what social interaction should entail. The data,
however, showed that slightly over 75% of students believed that it was in fact
reducing social interaction. We predicted that students would be evenly divided
on reporting whether or not they felt that cell phone use was reducing social
interaction. The Survey Planet gave us general results, and nothing specific
for the participants; yet we cannot see if these results back up my prediction.
Therefore, we went over the data to see whether it was men or women who
believed that cellphones reduced social interactions. After analyzing the
results it appeared that 101 females as against only 78 males reported that
cellphones affect social interaction. However, the number of the participants
who said no was slightly the same; where the males were 28 and females 25. This
means That TTU students were not similar to each other on reporting whether or
not they feel that cell phone use is reducing social interaction (See figure
3).
Discussion
For this study, as an Academic Writing class at Texas Tech,
we investigated whether or not TTU students admit their overuse or addiction of
cellphones while in class or while driving, and what they think about
cellphones in social interactions and relationships. We administered an online
survey; we expected varieties of answers, where the total of the participants
were 229 students, depending on factors such as gender, age, and background.
However, the outcomes showed that four of the hypotheses were confirmed, while
two were not. TTU students do actually overuse cellphones.
First, we believed that there would be a difference between
male and female students regarding the purpose of using cellphone while
driving. We could argue here that some students might have done the survey
without thinking of the questions, just to get them over with, or they were not
honest about their answers.
Moreover, we predicted that students would deny their
addiction to cellphones while in class or while driving. The results backed up
what we expected, and some participants wrote comments to show that they do not
overuse their phone because they only check the time. Although it could be
true, we could argue that the participants might not want to accept that they
were addicted to cellphones.
Furthermore, we predicted that participants who would report
having severe agitation when their cell phone dies would be undergraduate
students, which could be true or false. The findings supported the hypothesis,
where we based it on the age group under 23year old students. Copeland (2010)
was one of many previous studies which has shown that the younger the person,
the stronger the reported agitation would be. We could assume that rates become
low when the age is higher than 27 years.
The fourth hypothesis showed unexpected outcomes, where
students reported that using cellphones did hurt their grades, and using phones
while driving was dangerous. Even though participants were aware of that
cellphone usage in the class could affect their academic performance,
unfortunately they still continued to do so.
Limitations of this study includes the low number of
participants, which was 229 students at Texas Tech University. Having a bigger
number would definitely change the findings for such a study. Also, the number
of the participants for both genders was uneven, where there were 105 males and
124 females, which affected the results. Another factor might be the age of the
participants and their backgrounds. An important fact is that if this study was
formal and funded by the school or another funding authority, the findings
would be more of a proof and a useful tool to show the risks of cellphone
addiction in Lubbock and on the TTU campus, and could be used as an example to
make students aware of cellphone danger in general. The study was informal in
nature, and with the limited resources that we had at our disposal, this was
the best we could do. We could do a future study to compare, for example, two
school campuses in Texas or in another state in the United States, and having a
fair number of American and international students, which would be very
interesting to see how different the results would be.
Conclusion
It is impossible to deny that cellphones offer us
convenience in entertainment, work, study, and social interaction, which makes
us use them more and more. Even though they bring accessibility to us, frequent
use could lead to cellphones addiction. We see now that some participants
denied that they are addicted to their phones and others admit their overuse of
cellphone. However, what could be useful for those students in such a situation
after being aware of their situation is to manage cellphone use. It could be
hard at the beginning but gradually it would control their usage, for example
turning off the alert signals would reduce the temptation to check the phone. Avoiding
using the phone for everything would also reduce the cellphone usage, but
requires self discipline.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
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