Cell Phones: Time to Control Excessive Usage

Nazir Hossain
 

Abstract

Cell phones are very useful in our everyday lives. This device makes the world small, and makes everything accessible by just a click on the screen. However, with the growing development of technology, multi-functioning cell phones are becoming a very destructive device. Cell phone usage while driving can be very dangerous. There is an increasing trend of road accidents due to excessive cell phones. Cell phones can also ruin social interactions. Excessive cell phone usage can cause the demotion in grades, and sleep disorder or mental stress. We, as a group, conducted a survey on 229 participants from Tech community to get their responses on using cell phones. We made our survey to validate our six hypotheses which we made. The results of our survey give some interesting findings of excessive cell phones in driving, social interactions, and in the classroom study. We could bolster our hypotheses by amassing more data from extended sample size by asking more appropriate questions.

Introduction

Cell phones are one of the most widely used electronic devices in current days. It has been reported that 90 percent of American adults (Mobile technology fact sheet, 2014) and 88 percent of American teenagers (Lenhart, 2015) own cell phones. Some people also think about the simple functioning mobile phones instead of multi functioning phones to prevent excessive usage (North, 2014). Although cell phones are important in our daily lives, they also cause some problems such as road safety, social relations etc. Although cell phones are very useful in classroom study (Matchan, 2015), these have adverse effects on student’s grade from excessive usages such as social networking, texting etc. We, the ESL 5315 classroom, conducted a survey among the Texas Tech University students about how they thought about the usage of cell phones in driving, social relationships, and classrooms.

I was mostly interested on studying effects of cell phones in person to person relationships. I personally experience a lack of intimacy among people even in a social gathering. Most of them surf their smartphones and barely talk to each other. It is true that people are virtually connected through social media. I can see a lot of pictures, status updates, important achievements, etc. in Facebook. However, I do not feel the real connections that we had before the abundance of internet. I think that these new generations’ people are getting alienated from each other whether they are staying close or distant. I find it would be an interesting study to get an idea how Texas Tech students see this issue.

We each made six hypotheses based on reading several news articles which were available online. We made a questionnaire form with several questions. Texas Tech University is one of the largest universities in the U.S.A., having 32,487 students (Toth, 2015). Although we are focusing on American undergraduate students, we are also considering international graduate students in Texas Tech University. Some of our responders were of other professions as well. After our survey, we collected data and conducted statistical analysis. This study helped us to learn about perceptions of people, mostly students of Texas Tech University, on cell phone usage in driving, social interactions, and classroom study.

Literature Review

Cell phones are very useful electronic devices which can play an important role in our everyday lives. People use cell phones not only for communication purposes but also to feel more connected with their friends and family through social media (Importance of mobile phone usage, 2015). Cell phones are useful for safety and business purposes since they help people to stay connected constantly with friends and business partners (Importance of mobile phone usage, 2015). Luce (2011) reported that cell phones play a great influence in psychology, community, culture, art, and world economy, due to the easy access of everything GPS to world news within a second through cell phones. Cell phones are getting so important in life that seniors are learning how to use them from young generations (Students give lessons on cellphones, tablets to senior citizens to bridge technology gap, 2016).

Talking and texting while driving are becoming extremely important issues regarding safety on roads. A simulated driving experiment (Strayer et al., n.d.) shows that hand free or hand held devices cause driver’s distraction, such that they should not be allowed to be used in cars. Talking and texting while driving increase the collision rate 4-6 and 23 folds respectively (Lee, 2013). Lang (2015) reports that the road accidents may happen not only for the drivers but also for pedestrians who listen to music, talk or text while crossing roads. In the U.S.A., although some states prohibit the cell phone usage while driving, people are still using their cell phones (Lyden, 2011). People have actually made some applications which can prevent the cell phone usage while driving (Lyden, 2011). There is a decreasing trend in talking while driving, whereas an increasing trend in texting on campuses in Texas during 2011-2013 (Wilkinson, 2015). It is interesting to note that female drivers are more likely to use their cell phone than male drivers (Wilkinson, 2015).

Nowadays, cell phones are becoming popular in classroom study. There are a lot of YouTube videos that are available on popular topics including science, technology, economics, linguistics, etc. Students use their cell phones to learn foreign languages, to discuss things through chat with classmates, and even to collect data in Physics lab (Matchan, 2015). Parents are also interested in giving cell phones to their children to ensure their security (Matchan, 2015).

Cell phones may also be harmful when people get addicted to them. If someone uses cell phones 3-4 hours or more in one day, we can say that he/she is addicted to them. Frequent cell phone usage may cause distraction in classrooms which might affect students’ grades (Bjornsen, 2015). Teachers also get frustrated when they notice that students are not paying attention to their class. For example, one ESL teacher decided to terminate her teaching profession for the lack of attention in the classroom from students (Matchan, 2015).It is extremely difficult for teachers to make the lectures more interesting than good YouTube videos (Matchan, 2015).

People use cell phones for communication, either calling or texting. Young generations prefer texting, whereas seniors still use calling or email option to communicate with friends and family (Hyman, 2014). Young people also use text messages to let their parents know about the decision of a romantic relationship with their loved ones (Hyman, 2014). Hyman (2014) considers that this social attachment is not addiction and we cannot judge them negatively.

Cell phones also have some impacts on human health. People who use cell phones excessively may suffer from sleep disorder, insomnia, stress, and mental health problems (Pedersen, n.d.). Excessive cell phone usage causes sleeping disorder for men. On the other hand, female users suffer from depression along with sleeping problems (Pedersen, n.d.). Some people have to go to a rehab program to manage their excessive addiction to cell phones (Anderson, 2015). In a recent study, Veeravagu (Veeravagu, 2015) shows that the radio frequency radiation may cause tumors and brain cancers, if users keep their phone very close to their body for a long time period.

Hypotheses

1.      I believe that female Tech students will say they use cell phone more than male students while driving in Lubbock and open road.

2.      I believe that Tech students will admit that cell phone usages reduce the social interactions.

3.      I believe that female Tech students are more sensitive about using cell phones on their dates.

4.      I believe that T.T.U. students will admit that checking cell phones in class affects their grades.

5.      I believe that Tech students will admit excessive cell phone usage causes sleep disorder, stress, and mental problems.

6.     I believe that TTU students will say they help their seniors to get familiar with cell phones.

Methods

As a part of the ESL 5315 project, we tried to investigate people’s perceptions of cell phone usage in everyday life and intercultural marriages or relationships. The class was divided into two groups and we conducted this study. I am a member of the cell phone group. We read a couple of articles, predominantly newspaper articles, about cell phone usage. We mainly focused on three aspects of cell phones: in driving, in social interactions, and in classrooms. Based on our reading, we could see that cell phones have both positive and negative impacts on study in classrooms. However, cell phone usage while driving is very dangerous. Some articles mentioned that female drivers are more likely to use cell phones while driving. We did not know how the Tech community would respond on this issue. I am very concerned about the excessive engagement on cell phones which may affect the social interactions. Too much use of social media actually takes us apart from real life. We, each group member, made six hypotheses which were based on our literature review. Then we made a questionnaire form to support or disprove our hypotheses. Since we wanted to compare male vs. female, American vs. international, Texan vs. those from outside of Texas, younger vs. older, etc., our target responders were in a wide range of people. The responders were also requested to mention their major. Primarily, we along with the instructor and TA’s, asked six American males and six American females to fill out the questionnaire, either in person or online.

 I personally went on campus and requested 12 Americans to do the survey. They were very supportive and happy to do the job. I also filled out one survey which covered an international responder as well. Then we covered some international students for this survey. In the end, we gathered data from 229 responders. One of our classmates, Hoa, compiled our questions in an online version. We entered all the answers in this. This online statistical software gave us the required statistics in pie chart format. We used another kind of software for further analysis.

 Asking the right question is everything for this kind of social psychology study. We tried our best to make the questionnaire as perfect as possible. However, there were some problems in several questions. For example, people did not quite get the question about the feeling of stress in their dating. They were not sure what to answer. We got some unanswered questions. In one question, we asked about problems of using excessive cell phones such as sleep disorder or excessive stress. However, this question was incomplete. We did not give an option “no problem”. We admit that we are not doing a real social psychology study. Our sample size was not very big. Since we were doing a class project in writing class this study was enough to write a report on it. We think that this is great starting point and this experience will help us to make a more comprehensive questionnaire for the next social psychology study.

Results

We believed that participants would say that they did not use their cell phone while driving outside Lubbock, i.e., on the open road. However, we found different results. Most of the participants used their cell phone, although they admitted that using cell phones was dangerous. In Figure 1, 78.6 % used their cell phone when the car was stopped, and occasionally. Interestingly, responders who used cell phones frequently while driving outside Lubbock, 72.8% of them were females.

Figure 1: Frequency of using cell phones while driving outside Lubbock.

We believed that female participants would say they used  cell phones more than male students while driving in Lubbock. Our survey showed that it was true indeed. Generally, female drivers appear to be more careless while driving, which may cause accidents. We carefully studied participants who said they used cell phones frequently while driving in Lubbock. 4 out of 5 (80%) participants who used cell phones a lot were female.

 

 

Figure 2: Frequency of using cell phones while driving in Lubbock.

We believed that T.T.U. students would admit that excessive cell phone usage reduced social interactions. We found that the participants responded in favor of our hypothesis. It is common to our generation that they are constantly connected to social media, which is a sign of detachment from the real world. So they admitted that they felt somewhat detached from society. In Figure 3, 175 (76%) admitted that excessive cell phone usage might reduce social interaction and 54 (24%) did not admit this fact.

Figure 3: Participants who thought that cell phone usage reduced social interactions.

              We believed that female participants would be more maddened at their partners than male participants in a date. From our survey, we saw that females and males thought the same thing about cell phone usage on a date. Both were sensitive to use of cell phones on a date rather than talking to each other. However, most of the participants did not admit the stress on the date. I suspected that they either did not understand the question or were not in a relationship. However, I picked participants who admitted the stress on a date. From 36% participants who admitted they were mad at their partners on a date, 48 (57.8%) of them were female. On the other hand, from 12% participants who admitted their partners were mad at them, 16 (57.1%) were male. In both cases, females showed a little bit more anger on dates to their partners for using cell phones.

                                     Figure 4: Participants who felt stress on a date.             
                   We hypothesized that Tech students would admit that checking cell phones in class affected their results. We found from our survey that the participants gave their opinion against our hypothesis. Generally, it is true that using cell phone in a classroom may hamper their grades. There was a possibility to ignore this fact among our participants. However, our intention was not to judge them. We tried to find out whether they would admit it or not. The survey showed that 58% did not admit that their grades would fall from cell phone usage in classroom, and the rest admitted the fact. The results are shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: People who admitted or did not admit the hampering of grades because of using their cell phones in the classroom.

We believed that participants would admit that excessive cell phone usage caused sleep disorder and excessive stress, or any other mental problem. The study showed a similar result to what we expected. Since we did not provide enough options, some participants kept it blank. In this case, we considered that they did not feel any problem of using the cell phone, which was not probably the real situation. The results showed that 33.6% of total participants answered that cell phone caused excess stress, and 39% of total participants answered that cell phone caused sleep disorder. However, we were not sure whether they experienced problems or their friends experienced this.

We believed that Tech students helped their parents, aunts, or grandparents to use their cell phones. The results showed that they generally helped their seniors to learn the new technology. All participants answered the questions. However, someone who answered “no” may have been a person who did not have a chance to teach their seniors. Figure 6 shows that 73% helped their seniors to use cell phones, and the other 27% did not teach their seniors. We believed that most of the participants would be will willing to teach their seniors, if they had an opportunity.

Figure 6: Whether people helped their seniors to use cell phones or not.

Discussion

              Cell phone usage, whether texting or talking while driving, is a dangerous and life-threatening problem. People have been using their cell phones without considering consequences. The number of accidents in Lubbock is increasing at an alarming rate. In most of the cases, the primary reason is texting or calling. We, the ESL 5315 class, decided to conduct a survey on the Tech community to get an idea about their perspectives. There were numerous articles which showed adverse effects of cell phone usage in the roads. Although our sample size was not very high (229 participants), this study would give us some very interesting findings.

We thought that drivers would be more cautious while driving in open roads. Our survey results showed that drivers showed more or less similar behavior in the city and outside the city. They did not realize or care about the fatal consequences of having accidents on a high-speed interstate roads. Accidents in the city might be less destructive, while on the open road they might cause death. In general, female drivers appeared to be more careless than males. We found that the female drivers said they used their cell phones more than males while driving in the city and outside the city as well, which would increase amount of the accidents. In these circumstances, we need a solution to change people’s view on using cell phones on the roads. There are some flashing electronic signs on the Marsha Sharp freeway which display some advice and tell of number of deaths in Texas this year. Public media also can play significant roles to raise public awareness. I believe these kinds of advertisements will be very helpful to remind drivers.

            Nowadays, cell phones are so abundant that they have a bad impact on social interactions. Young generations are engaged in cell phones so much, that they are not actually connected to their friends and family. Our participants admitted that cell phones reduced social interactions. We were also interested in how couples responded to their partners’ excessive cell phone usage on a date. We thought that females would be more sensitive on this issue. However, our results showed that people of both sexes got annoyed when their dates used cell phones. Continuous updating status and posting private photos in social media might ruin relationships. It is possible that the partner is not aware of his/her activities which annoy others. So they should talk to each other and find a way to avoid the termination of their relationship.

            Although cell phones are very useful in classroom study, excessive usage of cell phones is a big concern. Since cell phones are multi-functioning, students can get any information using the internet. Cell phones are very helpful in a foreign language class. However, students are getting too involved in cell phone engagement in class, such as checking social media, playing video games, texting, etc., which are affecting their grades whether they admit it or not. Students should be aware of the potential fall of their grades for using cell phones and should be more attentive to the lectures.

Cell phones also cause sleep disorder and excessive stress. It is not recommended to use any electronic devices right before sleep which might disrupt our sleeping cycle. There might be some medical explanations for this. However, I think that any event or news can be very stressful, and this can be responsible for keeping us getting to sleep. If we do not get enough sleep in the night, we will suffer the following day. Some people did not admit to sleep disorder or excessive stress or any other mental problem. There was a problem in asking this question. We asked about whether they or their friends experienced problems. We were not actually able to separate responses. We could improve the questionnaire for further study to get the data that we wanted. However, there was a possibility of denial of this problem which could affect our data.

We had some limitations on asking the right questions to verify our hypotheses. For instance, we did not give enough options to the responders. We had some problems in entering data on the online survey software. However, our results were good enough to get some important results. In the future, we could increase our sample size and improve our questionnaire to get better results, provided that we would have financial support.

Conclusion
              In this paper, we conducted a survey among the Texas Tech community about the user behavior of cell phones in their day-to-day lives. We asked their opinion on the effect of excessive usage of cell phones while driving, in social relationships, and in classroom teachings. We made some hypotheses on the basis of our literature review and personal experiences. We tried to construct the questions so that we would very our hypotheses. After collecting data, both in person and online, we carefully analyzed results to prove or disprove our hypotheses. We compared our results with available literature findings. We found that women drivers were more likely less careful while driving than male drivers as we expected from our literature readings. Our sample population used similar extent of cell phones while driving in the city and outside the city. Men and women were similarly sensitive to use of cell phones on a date. Although there was an inadequacy of options for the questions on the heath problem of using cell phones, we found that excessive cell phones could cause sleep disorder and mental stress. We could get better results by asking more appropriate questions and by covering more people, if we could get funding for the study.

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Appendix

Survey questions:

http://esl5315academicwriting.blogspot.com/2016/03/final-draft-survey.html