The Use of Smartphone in Higher Education

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays technology help us a lot from getting the job done, look up something on
the internet, or just to have a time playing game. There is so much innovation every single
year, and we are at the point where if we are not keeping up with technology for just a
moment, we might just miss something. Maybe smartphone is the nearest technology from
our reachability now. Rectangular object with the whole world in it. For college students in
this era, smartphone have a big portion. it can be useful for looking for some research on the
internet, entertainment needs, and to stay connected with family and friend.

Smartphone are maybe the biggest innovation in this century, but also it might be one
of the biggest issues that no one realize. Nowadays smartphone is a daily need too for
college students (Atas,2019). with huge penetration rate of smartphone users, now the use of
smartphones among college students it’s a common thing (Dahlstrom & Bichsel, 2014). We
might think that the use of smartphones in higher education especially college students is an
improvement from the era before the smartphone was born. However, like I mention before
that a lot of people don’t realize how bad can smartphones affect learning activity.

There are still fewer studies focusing on the negative impact of smartphone use in
higher education. There has been little research on the use of smartphone in higher education
(see e.g., Atas,2019; Alfawareh & Jusoh, 2017; Synott, 2018). However, these studies are
more focused to the patterns and purposes of using smartphones in learning activity (Atas,
2019). They also more focused with the use of smartphone in classroom when the learning
activity takes place (Synott, 2018). None of these studies investigated the bad effect of
smartphone use in college students on a daily basis. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to
describe smartphone use of university student life, to provide the good and bad effect of it,
and determine whether it is more beneficial or distracting. This study aimed to provide the
answer of 2 question.

1. How important is the use of smartphones in higher education?

2. How does smartphone affect students on a daily basis?
LITERATURE REVIEW

Smartphone ownership is a common thing on higher education students. The survey

results comparing the years 2012 and 2014 showed that the percentage of smartphone use for
learning activity increased from 58 to 77 percent (Chen et al., 2015). Sheffield University
made a student mobile device survey in 2011. The results revealed that the students at
Sheffield University use their smartphones for surfing the internet and accessing academic
services most of the time. If compared to other gadget like laptop, smartphones are currently
the most used mobile equipment. It was also reported that smartphones (87%) are more likely
to be used than any other equipment in lectures (The University of Sheffield, 2011)

Hossain and Ahmed (2016) investigated current academic use of smartphones by 316
university students in a developing country. All of the students accessed their smartphones to
search for relevant information, and most of the respondent (62.3%) used the Internet a few
times a day on their smartphones. The respondents used their smartphones for accessing
academic information such as journal, research paper and e-book (65.5%), reading news
(63.3%), entering social media sites (60.1%), receiving sports news (40.8%), entertainment
(37.9%), and listening to music (37.6%). The use of smartphone on academic purposes to
support learning needs included reading full‐text articles (74.9%), viewing learning videos
(56.5%), recording class notes (45.4%), preparing class notes (36.2%), and library reference
(23.2%).

Smartphones are more flexible and affordances to the users by the fact that their
capabilities can be extended with the use of mobile applications. Reese‐Bomhold (2013)
investigated 62 undergraduate university students on smartphone application use. The
frequently used application by students were social and communication (95.7%), search
engines such as Google (78.7%), tools to support productivity (75%), entertainment and
reference or libraries are the rest. When it comes to academic use, 35 of the respondents
specified 70 applications used for academic purposes as search engines (60%), online
literatures or homework websites (14.4%), dictionaries (11.3%), tools (Note or Calculator)
(10%). Jesse (2015) surveyed smartphone and app usage among college students. The results
revealed that social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) applications are used by the
average college students the most.
RESARCH METHODS

Research Design

In order to describe smartphone‐use of higher education students, a survey method

was followed. Survey studies aim to describe the Purposes, beneficial and harmful effect of
using smartphone.

Participants

The target population of this study was the university students who have smartphones
and use it frequently. A total of 15 students participated in this study. The participants are
from 2 different university.

Data Collection Tool

The data were collected using a survey instrument which were constructed based on
previous literature on smartphone use of university students. The survey instrument consisted
of 3 sections. The first section consisted of 5 items which focused on basic information of the
respondent and their smartphone use information (Name, University, daily use, daily check,
daily Internet use on smartphone, and smartphone use time during the day). The second
section consisted of 5 items which focused on purposes of smartphone use. The third section
consisted of 5 items which focused on distraction caused by smartphone. Participants were
allowed to choose multiple items in section two and three. Section two and three also
included an open‐ended “other option”.

Procedures

The data were collected using a web survey via Google Forms in from March until
April 2020. The link of the survey was sent to the respondents via WhatsApp, Line and
Instagram’s direct message. The data were provided by Google Forms.

Data Analysis

The data were analysed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, and
percentage). Google form was used for the data analysis.