An Experimental Study of Mobile Phone Impact on College Students

Smartphones have revolutionized the pervasive computing research domain. With various sensors embedded in them, they are being applied as experimental platforms for sensing, computing, and communication. These devices are utilized to sense certain physical quantity like motion, sound, location, etc., to infer user’s physical activity levels, location/context, and mobility patterns. The devices are also being used to understand user application usage styles and correlate them to users’ addiction to mobile phones, mental states, personality types, depression, emotion, and stress levels. However, such studies have not been attempted in India. The Indian research on mobile overuse includes studies conducted purely through surveys and personal interaction. In this work, we attempt at using the mobile sensing mechanism to study how smartphones impact the academic, social, and mental lives of students.