Disruptive Innovation and Students’ Performance- Mobile Device Use and Overuse

03/Jun/15 di Simona

June, 2015

A White Paper by mobileshop.eu

Click here to view the PDF of the whitepaper

Introduction: the mobile dailiness

The ubiquity of electronics has made a deep impact on virtually all aspects of our daily lives. As the devices grow smaller and more powerful, they redefine our approaches to everything from business collaboration and education to some basic daily activities. This is primarily because mobile devices provide constant internet access, thus making it difficult to tell where the digital world stops and the real one starts.

More importantly, it is becomingincreasingly problematic todefinethe line between technology useand overuse,especially amongyoung generations that do notactually knowthe world withoutthe omnipresent digital technology.

Today, the use of technology among children and teens has become commonplace and greatly defines their daily habits including studying, doing homework and interacting with their friends and teachers. This is mostly because smartphones and tablets have become integral to students’ daily lives and are even used as assistive tools in education. However, parallel to the development of new teaching and learning approaches that increasingly include smart devices, new concerns emerge regarding their potential overuse. Namely, while facilitating different aspects of their lives, smartphones and tablets can also negatively affect students’ academic performance or general physical and emotional wellbeing. Although smart devices have already entered the educational systems around the world as a new learning platform, their impact on learning outcomes is not always positive. After the accelerated expansion of these devices across countries and industries, the year 2015 finally allows a more detailed examination of the effects of technology use among digital natives. With respect to such studies, this white paper will analyze the available data on smartphone use among students in order to examine the effects of this trend and potentially define the thin line between technology use and overuse.

Global mobility trends

Mobile technology has seen an accelerated development over the last few decades, emerging as a trend that enables virtually anyone to get a powerful device at a low price and access the Internet anytime and anywhere. Historically, technology has been used to automate different processes in business, education or at home, and mobile devices we use today do this on a much larger scale. Their expanded use and increased potential redefines different collaborative settings as they go mainstream in most parts of the world.

Mobile device use stats

The number of mobile devices currently in use surpassed the total number of the world’s population. Among these, smartphones and tablets have practically become default personal devices, while wearable technology gradually makes a breakthrough in our lives. Currently, there are almost 2 billion smartphones across the planet with 1.5 and 1.4 million apps available at Google Play and Apple App Store, respectively. Moreover, the number of mobile devices per user also increases and is expected to reach 1.95 in 2018. This is particularly associated with the business ecosystem, where mobile devices are replacing desktop computers as primary means of collaboration and communication. In relation to this, Mobile Statistics Report 2014 – 2018 by a market research firm The Radicati Group, Inc. gives the following preview of mobile device usage trends.

Mobile internet access growth

While the early models of mobile phones were primarily intended for calls and messaging, the next generation of smart devices shifted to mobile internet access instead. Today, their primary purpose is to enable location and platform independent web browsing, which largely defines their overall usage trends. Unsurprisingly, mobile data transfer has grown significantly over the last several years and already accounts for the largest portion of overall internet data traffic. According to Cisco Visual Networking index 2014-2019, global mobile data traffic in 2014 grew by 69%, while almost half a billion new mobile units were added. When it comes to smartphones, their usage grew by 45% in 2014 and is expected to start generating three-quarters of mobile data traffic by 2019.

Mobile devices in education

On average, students areable to engage in educationalactivities for only six minutesbefore turning to their devicesfor support.

Much like many other settings, the education sector embraced mobile devices as a disruptive innovation that aims to move the boundaries of traditional teaching and learning processes to improve learning outcomes. Over the last few years, a large portion of these activities has been moving to collaborative online spaces, thus partly contributing to the increased use of smart mobile devices among both high school and college students. Therefore, in addition to smart devices such as smart boards, traditional brick-and-mortar classrooms now also rely on using mobile phones and tablets. Considering the fact that college students spend more than three hours a day using their mobile phones and are unable to engage in educational activities longer than six minutes before checking their phones[1], it is unsurprising that educational systems increasingly adjust to such habits.

K-12 students and the mobile landscape

The generations of young people who use mobile technology on a regular basis significantly contribute to defining their place in the modern education. According to the figures provided by Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey 2014, 44% of elementary students are using smartphones regularly, while 71% of them say they would like to use mobile devices in classroom more frequently. In addition to this, Pew Internet Research shows that 92% of teens go online daily, while 24% say they are “constantly” online. Such habits clearly illustrate the role new technologies and especially the Internet have in students’ lives. Unsurprisingly, the education ecosystem changes to meet the demands of technology-dependant generation. In relation to this, Speak Up national report from April 2015 reveals that students see smartphones as the default means of communication with their teachers and friends. Additionally, more than half of them said they use smartphones to access social media networks, which demonstrates the popularity of these media. In addition to students’ personal preferences regarding mobile device use, educators around the world are increasingly implementing mobile applications and online resources in their study plans. Primarily intended to make learning more fun, they also bring benefits in terms of simplifying certain class management processes. Therefore, the purpose of implementing mobile devices in classroom is twofold: they allow simplification of class management work and at the same time enable educators to be more creative with class exercises. In pursue of these benefits, schools around the globe are seeking out the ways to provide more classrooms with the equipment necessary for wider use of technology in classrooms.

BYOD in education

As an alternative to school-provided equipment, a trend known as BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Device) has become a popular way for educational institutions to implement mobile devices in classroom activities. Initially associated with business settings, BYOD entered schools and colleges because it allows students to access digital content using device settings they feel most comfortable with. In the US, this trend seems to have exploded in 2014, when 56% schools reported having such a system in place. By comparison, a report by Center for Digital Education (CDE) and the National School Boards Association (NSBA) reveals that this figure was 22% in 2013, meaning that more institutions are now ready to explore the potential of BYOD policies.

Students’ attitudes towards tablets in education

Precisely because of the fact that a large number of elementary students use mobile devices on a daily basis, most of them believe that using tablets in classroom would greatly improve their learning outcomes. Namely, Pearson report provides insights into the way students see the future of education, revealing that 90% believe tablets would significantly change the way they learn in future. Although majority of students still primarily use laptops for school work, they agree that smartphones and tablets make learning more fun. As presented in the report, a number of students believe tablets help them do better in class. However, some recent studies suggest that this may not necessarily be the case, especially in relation to low-achieving students. In these cases, limiting the use of mobile devices can contribute to the improved performance, which is why the general idea needs to be further evaluated.

Effects of banning mobile devices

Banning mobile phones in schools resulted in 14.23% test performance improvement for low-achieving students and 6.41% overall improvement.

Although typically seen as tools that improve students’ productivity by allowing greater flexibility and information availability, mobile devices were also found to negatively affect students’ performance at school. This is why many institutions still debate whether smartphones and tablets really make students more efficient or they should be banned. This hasbecome a particularly sensitive issue after some studies revealed that banning mobile phones can actually lead to an improved student’s performance. Namely, a 2015 study published by London School of Economics found that this improved test performance for low-achieving students by 14.23% and that schools that had introduced a ban saw 6.41% overall improvement. Considering these arguments, it is clear that modern schools still need to adapt mobile device policies so as to bring maximum benefits. More importantly, they need a strategy that balances the benefits and potential negative effects mass technology use can bring.

Technology overuse: trends and impact

Parallel to development of mobile technology, the concerns regarding its possible overuse kept increasing. More precisely, despite the benefits mobile devices can bring in terms of academic efficiency, their overuse can seriously affect students’ health, social skills and performance at school. The omnipresent technology establishes a specific lifestyle for these generations and makes it difficult for them to balance healthy offline activities with the efficient mobile work or studying. This is suggested in various recent studies that explored the ways students interact with technology and found numerous cases of health risks associated with overuse of digital resources.

Technology overuse and academic performance

“When people talk about children using smartphones in a negative sense, their main concern seems to be about their criminal use, but this study calls the attention of parents and students to the risk that excessive use of smartphones can compromise students’ effort to study.”

As pointed out in the quote above, there are multiple negative aspects of technology overuse that people still fail to address. Namely, a 2015 study by Junichi Sato revealed that decreased academic performance is one of the frequent consequences of unregulated technology use among both elementary school and college students. The study was carried out by the city of Sendai and Tohoku University with 23,139 participants of different ages. The findings were quite convincing and pointed out that overuse of smartphones directly impacts students sleep, given that 53.5% of junior high school students who spent more than four hours using their smartphones reported they were having less sleep. More importantly, the study found that students who did not use smartphones at all and studied 30 minutes a day scored higher on a math exam than those who spent two hours a day both studying and using mobile devices. Evidently, the use of technology does not necessarily make students more productive. In fact, considering the figures from the Sato’s study, it seems that a large number of digital natives have troubles balancing their use of digital resources. This issue is particularly sensitive because the overuse of technology at a younger age can expose children and teens to risks that may have a long-term impact.

Other consequences of technology overuse

Emotional and social skills

The possible impact of technology use on development of social skills has been a frequent topic of discussion among specialists. One of the interesting studies in this field was carried out by the researchers at the University of California, who examined how teens behave in settings where they have no access to technology whatsoever. After spending only five days in an educational camp without any screens and with lots of face-to-face interaction, the children were found to be able to better recognize human emotions. The alarming dimension of this research is the fact it proves that technology has a great impact on how preteens perceive emotions, which could lead to serious problems in social communications.

Obesity

Among the negative impacts of excessive technology use, obesity emerges as a problem that is partly associated with technology-defined lifestyles. In support of this, a pediatrician Dr. Alicia Rieger notes that unregulated texting on a daily basis can lead to serious problems such as eye strain and obesity, which are becoming more commonplace among children and teens. Of course, the seriousness of these issues can grow proportionally to the amount of time children spend in front of screens, which poses a need for parental control over technology use among children.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is another trend associated with the increased technology use and is on a constant rise among preteens and teens. As opposed to traditional forms of bullying, online harassment can happen anywhere and includes some new threats such as impersonation, stalking, denigration, etc. Quite expectedly, a European survey that included responses of 3,500 children found that those who use smartphones regularly are more likely to be cyberbullied than those who do not use mobile devices. More specifically, 17% of smartphone users and 15% of tablet users reported to have experienced cyberbullying in some form, compared to 8% of those who do not use mobile devices at all.

Slower development of toddlers

In relation to the first exposure to technology, a curious trend was recently revealed in a study by Hilda Kabali et al., who examined the extent to which babies are exposed to technology. The research revealed that children as young as six months are able to touch or scroll the screen and that the exposure along with their abilities to use mobile devices grows over time. By the age of four, the study suggests, over one third of children uses a smartphone or tablet for at least an hour. Additionally, parents are found to increasingly expose their children to mobile devices to calm or entertain them, which is particularly important because it may impede toddlers’ development. More specific study in this field was done by researchers of Boston University’s School of Medicine in February 2015, who came to some similar conclusions.

Addressing the issues

Technology advancements have certainly changed the world as we know it. In most settings, mobile devices are recognized as a critical innovation resource that improves productivity, facilitates potentially exhaustive activities and improves the ways we communicate and collaborate. However, their omnipresence makes it difficult for many young people to balance their use, which brings some new risks for their health, performance at school and social skills. This becomes even more important as a greater number of educational institutions across the globe implement policies regarding the use of mobile devices in classrooms, thus further expanding the use of technology among children and teens. Although mobility has multiple advantages over traditional educational systems, it needs to be regulated in a way that minimizes health risks too. The optimum use of mobile devices and other digital resources is, therefore, a new challenge for both educators and parents, who need to ensure children are adopting a healthy approach to technology.