Smart Phone Use among University Students

Smartphone users have increased to over two and a half billion people and it is predicted to rise to five billion by the year of 2020. These smartphone users have been spending an increasing amount of time, indicating an obsession with a virtual world. Smartphone users include students from secondary school to tertiary levels. Their constant engagement with mobile phones has raised questions of whether it has developed into an addiction that may have negative consequences on academic performance. With regards to these issues, the present study aims to examine the attitude of students towards this intriguing technology, the hours spent, activities involved and possible risk of phone addiction among the university students in the Malaysian context. This study employs a descriptive research design to collect data. Data analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage. Fifty-five out eighty students responded to a survey which was applied randomly among students from a public higher learning institution. The findings indicated that most of the students somewhat agreed that they used smartphones without any compelling reasons at very hour and that it induces emotional stability. The findings also indicated that students were addicted to smartphones to some extent that may affect their academic performance. It is expected that the findings from this study will help higher learning institutions to better understand the pattern of smartphone usage among university students and to reduce or control academically disruptive smart phone addiction.