元培醫事科技大學應用英語系英文專題報告

指導老師 : Michael Jenks

The Advantages and Disadvantages of

Smartphones for Students

Student: 邱筠傑 Jason、洪靖軒 Jim

鄭智桓 Chris、蔡侑潤 Danny
李哲偉 Lee、陳柏丞 Tommy
Student ID: 1011417110, 1011417075,
1011417113, 1011417096,
1011417073, 1011417107.

中 華 民 國 104 年 12 月 30 日
Special Topic Report Signature Page

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Smartphones for Students

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 邱筠傑 Jason、洪靖軒 Jim
李哲偉 Lee、蔡舜智 Danny
鄭智桓 Chris、陳柏丞 Tommy

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Jan./2016

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Table of Contents

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Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….…..5

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….…6

Methods…………………………………………………………………………………..….9

Results……………………………………………………………………………………....13

Discussion and Conclusion………………………………………………………………..19

References…………………………………………………………………………………..22

ABSTRACT

Cellphones have been used in class for many years now, mostly for phone calls and simple
texting. Smartphones can do so much more, and many things can be done without the teacher
noticing. So, we wonder, are smartphones a big distraction in class? For how many students is
this the case? And, how many students find that smartphones are actually useful for school work

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in class? Are there more of these students than those who seem to be easily distracted when the
teacher’s back is turned? Smartphones are ubiquitous and we want to know about the
smartphone’s advantages and disadvantages for students in the classroom. We used a
questionnaire that asks about when the students use smartphones in class. Further, we got actual
counts of what students do with their smartphones in class with an observation checklist. We
have noticed some cases when smartphone usage in class is very high, mainly when students take
out their smartphones in order to kill time. However, we found a few of them use a smartphone
to help with classroom difficulties and questions. We discuss the impact of cellphones on
classroom study.

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 INTRODUCTION

When we are in class we often see others, and ourselves, using smartphones. The reasons for

using a smartphone in class are many. Some students are bored. Some students want to share

their life with friends and don’t care about doing it during class. Some are actually doing class

work like looking up terms and searching for data. Whatever the reason, we hope to learn about

the advantages and disadvantages of the rise of smartphone use in class.

Some years ago, cellphones were certainly used in class, mostly for only phone calls and simple

texting. Smartphones can do so much more, and many things can be done without the teacher

noticing. So, we wonder, are smartphones a big distraction in class? For how many students is

this the case? And, how many students find that smartphones are actually useful for school work

in class? Are there more of these students than those who seem to be easily distracted when the

teacher’s back is turned? Our first method was doing a questionnaire. This questionnaire helped

us investigate the habits of students and their thoughts about students using smartphones in the

university. The second method was going to a variety of classes and directly watching how the

students use smartphones during classtime. We called the form for this our Observation

Checklist. The third method was interviewing 2 students and 1 teacher after we observed each

interviewee’s classroom, asking them what THEY had seen other students using smartphones for.

This gave us many more details to help us explain our survey and observation results.

Here is a list of our key questions (Table 1):

Table 1: Key Questions

1. What are the students doing when they take out their smartphones?
2. How many students use their smartphones when the teacher doesn’t want them to?

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 3. Do smartphones really help students work in class?
4. Is the data accessed on a smartphone more useful than what the teacher teaches in class?

We think that science and technology are all about more and more progress. That is why we put

so many recources into these things. We believe in progress. However, certain technologies can

make many of our students retrogress because of distractions. After all, everyone doesn’t want to

learn when they arrive in class and some of them may think that the so-called smart phone can

help them get through another boring lecture by providing something they feel is important, like

friends on social media, and so on. It is really convenient. People are often lazy about opening

their books to check the information they truely do not understand. But, they don't know that the

smart phone is usually not helping them, but instead hurting their learning progress.

Students with smartphones certainly have a lot of the advantages of Internet technology

at their fingertips. After all, they can play games and watch films, etc., enjoying the

conveniences of so many features and capibilities. But we think that cellphones, especially

smartphones, have brought many negative aspects to learning. For example my friend is a

teacher. He once said, in the classroom, there are not many students with good concentration to

listen to the content that he prepares. But the smart phone can provide the same kind of

information, with perhaps different steps or mistaken information, thus confusing the students

and distracting them. So, he says the students have already been all confused by the smart phone!

Many students don’t care about doing anything in class and even don’t care what the teacher is

teaching. For these reasons, we wonder how much smartphones are a big distraction in the

classroom. How many students in the typical class are not distracted by smartphones from what

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they should be doing or learning? Are there more of these students than the others who seem to

be easily distracted when the teacher’s back is turned?

In an article from 2013 (Lin, et al), smartphones were said to be the compass of the modern era.

Most people use smartphones for finding some places where they want to go or information they

need at the moment. From the article, consumers using smartphones classified use in 6 parts:

traveling information searching, business information searching, looking up international news,

looking up restaurants and movie reviews, social media and social online games, and looking up

maps. There are so many apps people could use on their smartphones, and so we think that usage

won’t actually be limited to 6 parts at all. Using smartphones is becoming so common that

people feel they can’t live without them, and this even includes us.

An article from 2013 (Hsu, Chou & Ma) used a new name for smartphone users who use a

smartphone all the time -- “Smartphone Addicts”. In 2013, Taiwan Facebook official user data

showed that at least 10 million people are using Facebook per day. Brenner (1997), as cited in

Hsu, Chou & Ma (2013) said, young people get IAD (Internet Addiction Disorder) more than old

people, because young people spend too much time using the Internet. According to the

Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation’s statistical results in 2005, as cited in Hsu, Chou & Ma

(2013), 15~16 year-old people are the most common users of the Internet. This all happened

before popular Internet-using smartphones, modelled after the iPhone, were even developed.

According to the article, we think that people in Taiwan are spending too much time on the

Internet, which causes people to become a Smartphones Addicts or get IAD.

METHODS

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There were three ways we conducted this research. We used these three methods because we feel

they helped us better understand the students’ thinking and habits with regard to smartphone use

in their university life.

Method 1

The first method was doing a questionnaire. We delivered a questionnaire to 100 students

throughout 5 YPU departments. These departments are the same departments in which we made

our observations (see Method 2 below). This questionnaire helped us investigate the habits of

students and their thinking about students using smartphones in the university classroom. This

questionnaire has four parts. The first part is about personal data. We found out age, gender, year

in school, and so forth with this section. There are 5 questions to get this data. The second part is

10 questions about basic habits and usage. For example, we asked how often they might use their

smartphones in class and what they normally do in class with their smartphones. The third part

had 21 Likert-style questions with four possible responses, each: Strongly Agree; Agree;

Disagree; Strongly Disagree. The questions looked for opinions on smartphone usage and

smartphone impact, especially in academic student life. There are also questions about general

usage and impact on things like friendship. The fourth part is about the usefulness of the

smartphone in the classroom, including the idea that sometimes students might feel they learn

more from the smartphone than from the teacher.

Here are sample questions from each section:

Table 2: Sample Questions from the Questionnaire

1. How much time do you use your smartphone each day?

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 2. How often do you pull out/access your smartphone per class?

3. When you use the smartphone during class time, what do you use it for?

4. Smartphones are a distraction to me in the class.

5. Using smartphones in class can help me study in class.

6. Smartphones bring a lot of entertainment to me.

7. Using smartphones is a part of my life.

8. Because of smartphones, I often skip my homework.

9. It bothers me that when I go out with friends we often spend a lot of time on our smartphones
instead of talking together.

10. Smartphones affect me a lot when I am in the class.

11. Searching for information on smartphones is faster than asking the teacher.

12. If you think these questions are terrible, your smartphone will explode.

Method 2

The second method is that we went to a variety of classes (20 total) and directly watched how the

students use smartphones during classtime. We visited the following 5 departments: Healthcare,

Business, Nursing, English and Radiological Imaging. We called the form for this our

Observation Checklist. We have already noted that students make a habit of using smartphones

in class, even when explicitly not allowed, because of boredom, addiction, or for no reason in

particular that a student understands. Here is where we noted a lot of what we noticed the sudents

doing when they took out their smartphones in the class. We thought of every possible instance

we have seen or done ourselves, including selfies, texting, social media, watching video, phone

calling, searching for information for the class, playing games, music listening, work app use,

taking other photos (non-selfies), dictionary and translation. We also included an item for writing

down something we did not predict. We completed this observation list and took it to many

classes to look into what students are actually doing with smartphones. For example, when we

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saw that a student is using a translater, we marked “I” on the “Dictionary/Translation” column.

Any instance where a student, even the same student, used translation again, we marked a “II”,

and so on, as we made our observations.

Here is our observation table.

Table 3: Observation Table for Counting Each Occurance

Observation Total number of times

Selfies

Texting

Social media (Looking at Facebook,

Instagram….)

Watching video

Phone call

Dictionary/Translation

Searching for information for the class

Playing Games

Music listening

Work app (Word, PPT….)

Taking other photos (non-selfies)

Cannot judge

Method 3

In this method we interviewed 2 students and 1 teacher per classroom (40 students; 20 teachers)

about what they saw when students use smartphones in the classroom. This provided us with

important details that told us more about what we saw in the survey and observation results.

RESULTS

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With our survey, observations and interviews we gathered too much data to present below.

Therefore, we will highlight the most important, to us, information we found.

The survey results gave a large view of how students use smartphones in Taiwan, YPU,

classrooms in 2015. We successfully retrieved 100 surveys of the one hundred we handed out. In

section 1 of this survey, we found out the following about our students. 61 students are female

and 49 students are male. Their ages are from 19 to 21, with only 4 students from 22-24 years

old. And, there are 48 sophmore students, 44 junior students, 7 senior students and only 1

guaduate student.

In section 2, we found all students have smartphones, and the brand that most of them use is the

iPhone (44), and second is HTC (18), third is Samsung (15), fourth is Sony (10) and all others

make up 13 phones. According to our analysis of relative frequency use in their daily life, we

found 12 students use their phones 1 to 3 hours, 39 students 4 to 6 hours, 28 students 7 to 10

hours, 18 students more than 10 hours; just 3 students seldom use their smartphones in a day.

Next, we look at Question 5, “Where do you most often use your smartphone?” There are 4

answers for students to choose from: at home, at school, on public transportation and other. We

had 57 students who most often use their smartphones at school, 35 at home, 3 at school/home, 2

on public transportation, 2 at other places, and 1 who said “everywhere.” Further, in this section,

we asked about students using smartphones in class. For Question 6, “How often do you pull

out/access your smartphone per class?” we had 19 students choose 1 to 2 times, 36 students for 3

to 4 times, 25 students for more than 6 times, 19 students for all the time, and just 1 student who

never does it. Sometimes, teachers do not allow us to pull out our smartphones. So, our question

7 is “Do you ever use your smartphone when the teacher doesn’t want you to use it?” We had 69

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students answer yes, 31 students no; among these 69 students, 22 students pull/access their

smartphones 1 to 2 times, 22 students 3 to 4 times, 11 students more than 6 times, 14 students

completely ignored their teachers. What are students doing when they are using their

smartphones in class? This is an interesting question we must know about. Here is Question 9,

“When you use the smartphone during class time, what do you use it for? (multiple selections

possible for each student) There are 64 students for using social media, 3 students for video calls,

21 students for dictionary, 35 students for translation, 17 students for listening to music, 31

students for playing games, 8 students for phone calls, 12 students for taking photos (not selfies),

15 students for texting, 23 students for watching video, 9 students for selfies, 6 students for work

apps, 19 students for searching information for the class, and 1 student for checking the time.

Question 10 “I use my smartphone mostly for calls and occasionally something else.” To this

question just 6 students said yes, the other 94 answered no.

In section 3, question 6, “Smartphones can help me keep my friendships,” we had 73 students

agree or strongly agree, while 27 disagreed or strongly disagreed. For Question 7, “Smartphones

can help me keep in contact with family,” we had 63 students who agreed or strongly agreed,

while 37 students disagreed or strongly disagreed. Question 10, “Using smartphones is a part of

my life,” we had 88 students who agreed or strongly agreed, while 12 students disagreed or

strongly disagreed. Question 11, “Because of smartphones, I often skip my homework,” we had

40 students who agreed or strongly agreed, while 60 students disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Question 12, “Using smartphones has led to lower grades for me,” we had 25 students who

agreed or strongly agreed, while 75 disagreed or strongly disagreed. Question 19, “I now get out

for exercise (walking, outings with friends, etc.) less often because I spend so much time on my

smartphone,” we had 22 students who agreed or strongly agreed, while 78 students disagreed or

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strongly disagreed. Question 20, “It bothers me that when I go out with friends we often spend a

lot of time on our smartphones instead of talking together,” we had 58 students who agreed or

strongly agreed, while 42 students disagreed or strongly disagreed. Quesion 21, “Using

smartphones in class can help me to kill time,” we had 68 students who agreed or strongly agreed,

while 32 students disagreed or strongly disagreed.

In section 4, question 1, “Smartphones are a distraction to me in the class,” 74 students agreed or

strongly agreed, while 26 students disagreed or strongly disagreed. Question 2, “Smartphones

affect me a lot when I am in the class,” 68 students agreed or strongly agreed, while 32 students

disagreed or strongly disagreed. Question 3, “Smartphones are important in the class” 57

students agreed or strongly agreed, while 43 students disagreed or strongly disagreed. Question 4,

“Using smartphones in class can help me study in class,” 87 students agreed or strongly agreed,

while 13 students disagreed or storngly disagreed.

In our observation checklists, we went to Healthcare, Radiology, Business, English, and Nursing.

In each department we observed 4 classes, and we wrote down what the students were doing and

how many times they did it. On Healthcare, class 1, we had 8 times for texting, 16 times for

social media, 1 time for dictionary or translation, 3 times for playing games, and some students

were chatting with classmates all the class. Class 2, we had 6 times for texting, 21 times for

social media, and 5 times playing games. Class 3, we had 12 times for texting, 16 times for social

media, 4 times for searching information for the class, and 8 times for work app. Class 4, we had

14 times for texting, 18 times for social media, 14 times for playing games. On Radiology, class

1, we had 16 times for texting, 28 times for social media, 2 times for searching information for

the class, 17 times for playing games, 1 time for work app, and most of the students were looking

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at their facebook all the time. Class 2, we had 13 times for texting, 28 times for social media, 4

times for playing games. Class 3, we had 13 times for texting, 23 times for social media, 2 times

for playing games. Class 4, we had 13 times for texting, 23 times for social media, 2 times for

playing games. On Business, class 1, we had 10 times for texting, 11 times for social media, 2

times for searching information for class, 4 times for playing games; but in this classroom, their

teacher supposedly did not allow students to use smartphones during class time. Class 2, we had

2 times for texting, 8 times for social media, 7 times for playing games; in this class, most of the

students paid attention to the teacher. Class 3, we had 3 times for texting, 19 times for social

media, 4 times for searching information for class, 3 times for playing games; but in this class,

the teacher allowed students to use their smartphones because they needed to answer some math

questions. Class 4, we had 4 times for texting, 16 times for social media, 5 times for playing

games. On English, class 1, we had 8 times for texting, 14 times for social media, 7 times for

playing games; EVERY student used smartphones all the time. Class 2, we had 6 times for

texting, 9 times for social media, 10 times for dictionary or translation, 20 times for search

information for the class, 1 time for work app, the teacher let students watch a movie. Class 3,

we had 8 times for texting, 13 times for social media, 5 times for dictionary or translation, 3

times for searching information for the class, 1 time for playing games. Class 4, we had 13 times

for texting, 26 times for social media, 4 times for dictionary or translation, 11 times for searching

information for the class, 10 times for playing games. On Nursing, class 1, we had 7 times for

texting, 22 times for social media, 2 times for playing games; most students paid attention to the

teacher. Class 2, we had 5 times for texting, 11 times for social media, 1 time for search

information for the class, 3 times for playing games; most of the students were writing down the

important things about the class. Class 3, we had 5 times for texting, 9 times for social media, 5

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times for searching information for the class. Class 4, we had 11 times for texting, 14 times for

social media, 1 time for searching information for the class, 5 times for playing games. As you

see, most of students used, or could use, smartphones during their class; they most heavily used

social applications.

When we went to complete our observation checks, we interviewed 1 teacher and 2 students after

each class. For each class, we asked different questions. For the Nursing Teachers, we asked “Is

it a good idea to use a smartphone in class? One teacher said, “I think students can use

smartphones in the class; we cannot control them, but if they are chatting by using social media

or watching some video unrelated to the class, that will be useless.” We also asked the following

question of the two Nursing Students. “What are you doing when you are using a smartphone in

class?” One student said “I know that using smartphones should be banned in the class, so I will

avoid using it myself as much as possible. When I use a smartphone, it’s mostly for using

Facebook and LINE. Even if I didn’t have an electronic device, I would still stay positive!” For

English Teachers, we asked “Does a smartphone cause students not to concentrate on class?”

One teacher said “Yes, because if they are using smartphones, they won't listen to my points, and

if they want to use smartphones, when I agree, they can only use them for dictionary and

translation.” For the English Students we asked, “Will you pay more attention to your teacher

without a smartphone?” One student said, “Yes, I would likely pay more attention to the teacher,

but using a smartphone is a normal thing for students, and most students will be searching for

some information that a teacher neglected to teach us; if I cannot use a smartphone, it would be

inconvenient.” For the Business Teachers, we asked, “Have you ever used a smartphone during

class?” One teacher said “I have seldom used a smartphone during class, but when I do, it is

because some information I need for students to find the answers to is on the internet, so I must

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know what web addresses they should use.” For the Business Students, “Do you agree that using

a smartphone can help you search for information in class (making class time a better learning

time)?” One student said, “Yes, I agree that using a smartphone can help me search for

information in class, and I think it is quicker than the teacher telling it to us.” For the Healthcare

Teachers, we asked, “What would you do if a student uses a smartphone during class time?” The

teacher said “I will tell them to not use it during the class, and they should write down everything

I say.” For the Healthcare Students, “If you can’t use your smartphone in class, will you feel

uneasy?” One student said, “Yes, of course I will feel uneasy, especially if the teacher is so

boring because my smartphone can help me to kill the time!” For the Radiology Teachers, we

asked, “Do you know what the students do with smartphones in class?” One teacher said, “No, I

don't know what the students do with smartphones in class, but I guess most of them are looking

at Facebook, Instagram, LINE, or playing games.” For the Radiology Students, “What are your

classmates doing most with smartphones in class?” One student said, “Actually I don’t know,

maybe playing games, watching video, looking at Facebook or Instagram.”

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

We found some interesting information in our questionnaire, observations, and interviews. In the

questionnaire, all students have smartphones, and most of the students are using their

smartphones for about 4 to 10 hours, even though some students are on for more than 10 hours,

and most of them are using smartphones at school during class time. It did not matter if teachers

banned phones or not. The students ignored their teachers and pulled out their phones. From our

observations, we have determined this is not a good situation because it was obvious that using

smartphones during the class is a big issue and is clearly a distraction that leads many us to not

focus on study. True, some students think smartphones can support their assignments, but it

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occurs to us, again based on what we saw, if you are using your phone all through class then you

will not, cannot, focus on what the teacher is saying. First, this is very impolite to teachers.

Further, students seem to be fooling themselves when they say they use phones to support their

assignments. So, what are students doing most in the classroom with their smartphones?

According to our observation checklist, the most usage is social media. Sometimes, social media

can help us stay in contact with family or friends. However, should we really need to use

smartphones all the time, during classtime, too? Is the smartphone really that significant to our

life? These questions are interesting to think about. Most students said that using a smartphone is

a part of their life. It is an amusing answer to think that a particular product can be a part of our

life. Maybe a smartphone is a part of your life, but what we see is that it “destroys” a long period

of student time each day, time that would have better spent maximizing this expensive education.

As an extension of this, even time with friends is often destroyed by smartphone use. When we

are going out with friends, it seems nobody wants to talk to each other; they’re just using

smartphones, for instance, updating a status on Facebook, posting videos/pictures, or using LINE.

Why not talk with friends? Or, back to the study, why not listen durning the short time we have

each day in class. Technology is growing as time goes on; our observations support the idea that

we are gradually forgetting how to be “present” with each other or in class because we are

always chatting with people remotely via social media, or doing business, or watching yet

another interesting video. Most of the results of our survey has helped us elaborate the impact of

technology as it progresses on people’s behavior. We always hope technology could enhance the

well-being to human beings, but find that is not guaranteed as it can distract us from what we

really want (maybe a career based on training at school) or from the people we appreciate most

(like family and good friends). In the final part, the interview, we asked teachers and students

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some questions. For example, we asked teachers if is it a good idea to use a smartphone in class?

Here is how we paraphrase their cumulative response. They said that generally it is not allowed,

but there are few students who really care what the teachers are saying; students come to class

just caring about how to kill the time in class; the teachers feel helpless, sometimes, in

preventing masses of students from using phones. Indentically, most of the students’ answers are

the same. When we asked what they are doing when they are using a smartphone in class, they

basically used a tone that said, “Of course I am looking at Facebook, sending messages to my

friends with LINE.” Of course!? No! Has it become so natural for students to ignore important

work and study just for something they can do the other 12 or so hours they are awake? Don’t

these students know that while they are using their smartphones, the teachers’ hearts are hoping,

wishing that students will learn something right away from them? In fact, even with having now

talked to other students about this issue and seeing the negative impacts overuse can cause, even

we cannot be sure that we will not pull out our smartphones during class. But, now more than

ever, we think, at least, students should give teachers their basic respect. We feel that it is not

that much of a sacrifice to listen and learn for a few hours each day.

In Answer to Specific Questions

What are the students doing when they take out their smartphones? The most usage

involved social media. Students were almost impulsively going to this anytime they felt bored or

the teacher wasn’t looking.

How many students use their smartphones when the teacher doesn’t want them to? Almost

all students are using smartphones when their teachers don’t want them to use them.

Do smartphones really help students work in class? The answer is, just a little bit helpful

because many students are not searching imformation for the class, just passing the time. We do

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want to say, however, that a tiny number of students really did make good use of their phones

during class time, and a couple teachers did ask for, and get, a little bit of good information for

class from students’ use of smartphones.

Is the data accessed on a smartphone more useful than what the teacher teaches in class? A

part of the students think smartphones are more useful than teachers-only in learning in class.

REFERENCES

Lin, P-Y, Ji, Y-C, Lin, C-T, Chang, S-H & Lin, C. T. (2013). A study of the smartphone’s

impact on the national college students’ leisure behavior. From Journal of Recreation

Sport and Health Promotion, No.4, 17-33.

Hsu, L-T, Chou, J-H, Ma, S-M (2013). A study of the influence of smartphone addiction to

exercise behavior in senior high school students in Tainan City. From Review of Leisure,

Sport and Health, Vol.5 No.1.

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