Popularity, funding for health-effect research and cell-phone addiction. IEEE Antennas and. Propagation Magazine, 52(2), 164-166. [3] Haghighi, B. T., Othman, ...
Abstract— Over the last decades, the pace of progress in the technology has been a rapid development, especially in the Information Communication Technologies. The recent advancements which have changed the way people live is the Smartphone. It has become an inseparable element for the people in modern society and in particular young people’s daily lives. A Smartphone is not solely as a cell phone. It’s a computer, MP3 player, video player, notebook and etc. In North Cyprus, there isn’t a study to determine students’ Smartphone usage status. For this reason, the main aim of the study was covered this lack. 318 students were attended to the study. A questionnaire was used to collect data. Mann Whitney-U, Anova, ferequently and percentage were used during the analysis process. The results showed that the students spend much more time to use a Smartphone. However, their academic performance and social interactions have not affected. Keywords— Smartphone usage status, Smartphone usage test, students, North Cyprus, Smartphone.
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Over the last decades, the pace of progress in the technology has been a rapid development, especially in the Information Communication Technologies (ICT). A Cellphone phenomenon is one of the ICT revaluation results [1]. Lin (2010) underlined that the Mobile phone popularity is increasing every day [2]. Young or old, female or male, rich or poor most of the people who own cell phones use them. On the other hand, Internet has become an essential part of the modern community and we cannot oversee Internet necessities in the people lifestyle [3] The Cellphone provide a connection platform without time and location limitations [10] in addition most of them have some extra properties which are used in daily life such as GPS, high resolution cameras, calculator, reminder and etc. According to Kwon et al. (2013) study results, Smartphone which is the last generation of the cell phone has the same attributes as well as WIFI and/or Mobile data (3G or 4G) Internet connections [4]. The Smartphone is no longer a fresh word to people nowadays. It plays an important role in the people lives in the various aspects such as a business trading [5], Internet base communication applications (Whatsapp, Viber, Line), social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and etc. [6], provide new education platforms such as m-learning [7], entertainment applications as play music, video or play online games [8][9]. Kwon, Kim, Cho and Yang (2013) indicated that the Smartphone companies, which are in the competitions, have tried to change their devices’ hardware and software properties to be compatible with users’ lives [4].
There is no doubt that extremely use of everything has adverse. This statement contains technology usage, such as Smartphone too [2][9]. Researchers have underlined that an adolescent and young people spend more than one hour to use their devices during a day [1][5]. The number of Internet usage has increased dramatically over the last decade, with an estimated 3,035,749,340 users in June 2014 [10]. In this regard, the number of the Smartphone users is probably increasing too. From 2009 until the end of 2013, global Smartphone penetrations have been changed from 5% to 22%. It means that during these four years the number of the Smartphone users increased more than 1.3 billion. Overall, there were two Smartphone for every nine people in the world or 1.4 billion users until the end of 2013 [12]. Literature reviews exposed that recently the researches about technology use habit in North Cyprus only limited Bicen and Arnavut (2015) study [13]. They examined about technological device use habits in North Cyprus on students’ social behavior. Considering the current lack of Smartphone usage status in the North Cyprus, the present study has shown the importance to survey the status of Smartphone usage among university students. Because it seems that the m-learning method is one of the future educational methods in the state-of-art societies.
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The main aim of the present study was determined of students’ Smartphone usage status in North Cyprus. Furthermore, efforts were put to find suitable answers to below questions:
What are the students’ Smartphone usage statuses?
Are there any different opinions of Smartphone usage between different genders?
Are there any different opinions of Smartphone usage between different age groups?
What are the students’ opinions about main usage of Smartphone?
A total of 346 Near East University (NEU) students from various faculties in the North Cyprus during spring semester 2014-2015 participated in the study. However 26 of these students did not complete all set of the questions and they were excluded from this study. All in all, 318 students completed questionnaires 34.3% were female and 65.7% were male as shown in Table 1. Table 1: Important demographic data (N= 318) Characteristic
Frequency
%
Female
109
34.3
Male
209
65.7
18-20
99
31.1
21-23
108
34.0
24-26
56
17.6
27+
55
17.3
Undergraduate
241
75.8
Graduated
77
24.2
Android
100
63.5
IOS
202
31.4
Windows
16
5.0
Home
219
68.9
Campus
99
31.1
Gender
Age
Education Level
Smartphone OS
Accommodation Type
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The study’s questionnaire revised from Young (1995) “Internet addiction scale” to the Smartphone usage status [14]. It should be mentioned that, Youngs’ scale had 20 items based on the five-point Likert scale from “Rarely” (1 point) to “Always” (5 point). The revised questionnaire had two sections: the first section included 10 demographic questions and the second part consisted of 13 items. The participants answered to items on 5 Likert Scale from “Strongly disagree” (1 point) to “Strongly agree” (5 point), about using the Smartphone in their daily life. The questionnaire internal consistency was calculated to be .84 using Cronbach Alpha.
The study topic and aims were informed on the university website, and at the same time, announced to the students by informing on each faculty bulletin board during 2014-2015 spring semester. Following that, in cooperation with each department’s researcher assistant, the questionnaire served randomly in the cafeterias of faculties. The data collection was based on paper and pencil on English language measure. Also, the students were informed that the questionnaire was anonymous and they were not obliged to participate, and the completion of the questionnaire took maximum 10 minutes.
This study data were collected by using the questionnaire. After that, was used IBM SPSS Statistics v20 package to analyze and interpret the collected data. Mann Whitney-U (non-parametric test), Anova, frequency and percentage were used during the analysis process.
Table 3 explains the standard deviation and mean for each item on the questionnaire. Table 2: Descriptive statistics for questionnaire items Items
Mean
SD
1. I use my Smartphone longer than I had intended
3.49
1.01
3.91
1.05
usage.
2.49
1.19
4.I prefer to spend time with my smartphone buddies or for social activities
2.44
1.12
2. Right after waking up I always check my e-mail via the Smartphone or see whether there are missed calls, text messages or miss the conversation on SNS (Ex.Twitter or Facebook). 3.I neglect school work or house chores to spend more time on smartphone
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instead of my real-life friends or with the other members of my family 5.I feel my relationships with my smartphone buddies, are more intimate than my real-life relation
2.28
1.11
smartphone usage time
2.31
1.12
7.I try to hide the duration spent for my Smartphone usage time
2.75
1.03
8.I made an effort to cut down on my Smartphone use, but failed all the time
2.64
1.11
have planned about using my Smartphone
3.09
1.15
10.I try to hide my Smartphone usage time
2.76
1.10
3.22
1.13
2.74
1.16
2.83
1.20
6.I have gotten into trouble at school and my grades suffer because of my
9.While I can’t access or use my Smartphone, I still think about using it and
11.Excessive Smartphone usage, especially at night influence my sleep and I feel tired 12.Mostly, I find myself using my Smartphone instead of spending time with my friends or families who are want to spend time with me 13.I defense or become secretive when others ask me about what I am doing with my Smartphone
According to the highest mean which refer to item 2 “Right after waking up I always check my e-mail via the Smartphone or see whether there are missed calls, text messages or miss the conversation on SNS (M=3.91)”, explained that any mobile based social communication type is more important than other routines in the students’ lives. The next two highest mean Items: Item 1 “I use my Smartphone longer than I had intended (M=3.49)” and item 11 “Excessive Smartphone usage use, especially at night influence my sleep and I feel tired (M=3.22)”, have shown that the students are aware of extremely spending time with their device and how their sleep can be affected by this behavior. However, they inform that their uncontrolled Smartphone usage behavior, item 9 “While I can’t access or use my Smartphone, I still think about using it and have planned about using my Smartphone (M=3.09)” and item 13“I defense or become secretive when others ask me about what I am doing with my Smartphone (M=2.83)” have received they still thinking about using their devices even if they don’t have access to it. Furthermore, most of the participants defended or hide their Smartphone usage time or were secretive about usage reasons. On the other hand, according to mean of item 3 “I neglect school work or house chores to spend more time on Smartphone usage (M=2.49)”, item 4 “Prefer to spend time with my Smartphone buddies or for social activities instead of my real-life friends or with the other members of my family (M=2.44)”and item 6 “I have gotten into trouble at school and my grades suffer because of my smartphone usage time (M= 2.31)” has received a positive message. It can be claimed that their school activities and family or friend relationship have not been affected by Smartphone usage. In addition, the result of item 5 “I feel my relationships with my Smartphone buddies, are more intimate than my real-life relation (M=2.28)” seems certain that still they choose real-life relation instead of their Internet buddies.
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One of the most common interested issues among researchers is the impact of gender factor on Smartphone users. According to Billieux, Linden and Rochat (2008) study, females are more likely to be affiliated to Smartphone and exactly they like to use it [16][17]. Furthermore, female university students prefer to use Internet to keep contact with their family or other social relation. Also, they use Internet for their studies too [18]. Billieux, Linden and Rochat (2008) underlined that females are more dependent to their Smartphone but on the other hand, males use their devices frequently in dangerous situations [16]. One of the main aim of this study is: to investigate the interrelation between gender and Smartphone usage status among NEU students. Table 3 provides the evidence for explaining results about the difference opinions of the Smartphone usage status between different genders. Following by using Mann Whitney-U testing and specified the p value, we could answer the second sub main question of the study. Table 3: Mean difference between genders Gender
N
Mean Rank
Sum of Ranks
Female
109
143.82
15677
Male
209
167.68
35045
U
p
9681
0.028
* The mean difference is significant at the .05 level
The results given in the Table 3 explained that p value is less than .05 and there is a gap between Female and Male Mean Ranks. So, according to these results, it can be claimed that, gender does have a significant effect on the students’ Smartphone usage status. Furthermore, the Mean Ranks difference explained that male students’ preference to use the Smartphone is more than females. Similarly, Devis-Devis et al. (2009) studied on the same topic, their results showed that males Smartphone usage time was more than females [15]. In addition, Mok et al. (2014) underlined that there is a significant statistical difference between the Smartphone usages on gender [5].
According to Table 4 there is no statistically significant difference between age groups opinions about the Smartphone usage status of this study (p>.05). According to Lin (2010) study, the popularity of the Smartphone usage is increasing freely without age, gender or financial status effects [2]. Therefore, it can be claimed that, one of the reasons of this equivalence among the participants, is approximately same popularity of technology among various age groups. Table 4: Difference between Ages Age
Mean
Std. Deviation
18-20
2.75
0.63
21-23
2.87
0.70
24-26
2.86
0.60
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F
p
1.064
0.364
27+
2.93
0.66
Total
2.84
0.66
Another issue discussed in this paper is the different type of the Smartphone main usage. As indicated in Figure 1 all various main usage type which suggested in the questionnaire, were not selected by the students. It seems that, the students mainly use their devices for using Internet (68%). And in second place they use the Smartphone for calling (40%). The social network services such as Facebook, Twitter and other similar services took third place in this study (29%). By comparing the result of the SMS usage percentage (19%) and SNS (29%), it seems certain that, the
students prefer to use SNS communication way instead of old fashion SMS ones.
Figure 1: Percentage of main Smartphone usage
This study helped to project an overview of Smartphone usage on the NEU students in North Cyprus. The results of the descriptive statistics for questionnaire items provide evidence that Smartphone usage plays the main role in the students’ daily lives. According to the results, it seems certain that the students use their Smartphone longer than they had intended and they are aware of extremely spending time using their device. But, it can be claimed that their academic performance and social interactions have not been affected by the Smartphone usage. Furthermore, another important result of the collected data is shown that 68 percentage of the participants use their device to use Internet.
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According to Cavus, Varoglu and Serdaroglu (2012) claim that using Internet and Social Network Services provide the new platform for instructors and educational researchers to study about new method of the education [6]. As well as, mobile learning studies results have shown that mobile learning method is very useful for both teachers and students [19][20]. To tie this all together, the new generation of technologies and their high popularity, can provide a suitable platform for universities to convert their traditional education method to modern methods such as mlearning. The mobile device is the main component of M-learning. This cutting edge method can help students to use their devices efficiently in their educational lives. The authors expect that the results of this study will be useful to other researchers (educational institutions) to introduce m-learning. On the other hand, the time spend by students on Internet can be converted to educational purposes instead of doing unnecessary tasks.
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