Analysing The Effect Of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones has always been one of the most important and great devices of all times. Martin cooper, the cell phones inventor has changed the world in both positive and negative sides in different life matters. The effect of Mobile phones has reached every single person in the universe, Professors and doctors knew that there will be a huge change in the societies after this great invention; however, they never expected that mobile phone will make a new world with a lot of new advantages but also some disadvantages. Nowadays, Mobile phones are affecting the infrastructure of this world or Students in other words in all life matters, Mobile phones became a big part of students’ life. As they are considered one of the society categories, you should expect that the effect of the mobile phones has played an important part in their daily life. Therefore, they need it to communicate with each other in terms of their many studies matters. Talking about how good or bad is the mobile phones’ reflection on students’ life, health and also results can open an endless discussions, full of different ideas and thoughts, Some might say yes mobile phones has built a new wide vision for students and also their colleges and universities so everything can be done way faster and easier than before; for example, Students in old days when there was nothing called a cell phone had to write everything wrote or presented on the board ,while it is much easier and faster now with mobile phones’ cameras, It would not take more than five seconds to capture a clear detailed photo. Some say “Wow how can people live without a Bluetooth in their cell phones!?” Yes, those who think that mobile phones is a big part of students’ life have another strong thick point that supports their idea, photos and files can be delivered from a mobile phone to another or from a mobile phone to a pc in no time! So Students can share their notes, Lab pictures and videos easily. In addition, Mobile phones provide a great way of communication, which is the most important advantage you can use. Students now became closer to each other due to the amazing technology that mobile phones offer, It made things easier for students in many different study aspects, meetings are now conducted with one single SMS; also, they can reach their lecturers during their consolation hours even if the student was too busy to meet his/her lecturer. In case on emergency, Mobile phones can be very useful as they allow Students to deal with emergency cases; for example, one group member was late to an essential presentation, in this case the leader can contact him easily, or during a sport activity in the campus someone was badly injured so; thus, his friends can call the ambulance to avoid any Complications. Despite the huge amount of advantages, there has to be some disadvantages as well. Some people go against the fact that Mobile phones is a must in students’ life given that it has direct and indirect influences which may affect the students’ health and effort. For instance, the mobile waves can destroy our brain cells and cause disease like brain cancer. Besides, it can be addictive in a way that can drag the student not to pay attention in his class which may disturb other students in the class. Also, some students might use the phone camera in offensive matters that create tension among the students which will affect their output and productivity. In this report we are going to put a literature review which will provide this report with rich information which and that will guide us to better results. One more important section will be the findings part, which will come before the conclusion to allow the readers to know our final view after doing this report. Moreover, we are going to study the fact that mobile phones is very important for students; for that, we are going to list the results that we came out with from our questionnaire. Least but not last, we will summarize the results and outcomes attached with some recommendations to provide a better understanding for the readers, and also to cover all the advantages and disadvantages of the mobile phones to students that has been mentioned in all the report.

Literature Review

Mobile phones and wireless technologies are a well known part in the lives of many teachers and students in Multimedia University today. This technology has provided us with a very fast and quick access too many information and also not to forget that that with the help of these technologies we can talk to our friends by calling them or sending a text message or an Email. The world is going towards technologies and everyone is seeking towards what makes his life easier, for that reason we see people caring mobile phones, because it gives them a quick way to communicate with each other. These devices which can fits in our pockets are very powerful tools because it provides us with a variety of information sources and it enables us to communicate almost anytime and everywhere. Seeking for communication and information is the main reason why students are using mobile phones.

This review provides us with the main reasons and effects of mobile phones to the students of Multimedia University. A recent study shows to what extend did mobile culture penetrate college classrooms, Fried (2008) had students complete a weekly survey, throughout a whole semester, related to the ways they used laptops and mobiles is a psychology course (n=128). The course was based on lectures with no laptop or mobile activities utilized in any organized fashion by the lecturer. About 64% of the students reported using their laptops and mobiles at least during one class period. Those who used laptops used them, on average, about half of the class period. Users reported that about 50% of the time they used the laptops – it was for non-academic activities. In other words, close to 25% of the lecture time was spent by students, using their laptops to do other things then taking lecture notes. Similarly, in a large survey (n=1,162) conducted among American college students, one third of the students surveyed admitted using their laptops and cell phones playing games that were not part of the instructional activities during classes.

There is a long tradition in cognitive science studies that demonstrate that human mental resources are limited and that there is a performance decrement under divided attention conditions (Roda & Thomas, 2006; Gopher, 1993; Kahneman, 1973; Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Posner, 1982). However, one might suggest that current students are ‘digital natives’, who are savvy and efficient multitaskers, thus their academic performance shouldn’t necessarily be compromised by using laptops and mobiles during lectures. A study conducted by Hembrooke and Gay (2003) tried to address such claims. The study took advantage of a project where all students were issued laptops. Students (n=44) were randomly assigned, during a communication course class, to two experimental conditions: an ‘open laptop’ vs. a ‘closed laptop’. At the end of the class students took a recognition and recall quiz. The ‘closed laptop’ condition outperformed the ‘open laptop’ one. Moreover, students who used their laptops to look for lecture related materials did not do better than their friends who used the laptops for non-academic purposes. Fried (2008) reports similar results – she found a negative correlation between the amount of time students reported using their laptops during the psychology lectures throughout the semester and their final grade. Moreover, when asked, at the end of the course, what were the factors that might have interfered with their ability to learn lecture materials laptop use by fellow students was the single most reported distracter, followed by the interference caused by one’s own laptop use. Hembrooke and Gay’s (2003) and Fried’s (2008) studies suggest, therefore, that laptop multitaskers pay an academic price for their use to these technologies. The claim that laptops distract students and impair their academic performance refers to classrooms where laptop activity is not directly relevant to academic needs. Obviously, when laptop activities are pedagogically integrated into the course, for instance, when communication between students is required in a web-based collaborative activity – laptops could provide enormous advantages. Under such circumstances there is evidence that laptop and mobile activities can increase engagement, active learning and meaningful interaction among students and between them and the instructor (e.g., Driver, 2002; Barak et al., 2006; Demb et al., 2004; Gay et al. 2001). Decrease in academic performance due to off-task multitasking refers, therefore, mainly to non-structured use of laptops and mobiles during lectures.

Resent study with the same interests from Holon Institute of Technology about the use of mobile appliances during lectures, Ronen Hammer (2010) Most of the students who own laptops (91%) reported that they use them during classes for activities that are not related to the lesson, while 25% said that they always do so. The distribution of the activities is presented in Table 1.

It seems that instructors have a realistic and accurate perception of the activity carried out by students with the mobile devices during their lectures (Table 1). Students too believe that the instructors are usually aware of what they are doing with their computers (17% – always, 77% – sometimes).

As to cell phones: most of the student (93%) report that their cell phones are on “quiet mode” 6% leave them open and less than one percent completely shut down ! This behavior might not be surprising when compared to their behavior when attending a public show (movie or theater): none would leave it open (not socially accepted) but only five percents would shut it down completely (“fear of not being connected…”). Most students (83%) state that they try to hide their activity with the cell phone from the instructor. About half of the students (46%) state that they would answer calls that are not urgent and when doing so they leave the class (94%). Students state that they use their portable devices for other, non related activities when they are bored (portable computer – 97%, cell phone – 74%).

Students’ and Instructors’ Views: The main “paradox” surfaces from the data presented in Table 2. Students’ and instructors’ views on the harmful effects of using portable computers for other activities during lessons seem to be quite similar. Nevertheless, their attitude regarding the legitimacy of such action is very different.

There seems to be a clear relation between students’ age and their views on the issue of legitimacy of using portable devices during lectures for non-academic purposes. The correlation between views regarding legitimacy and age found for cell phones was significant (r=0.22, p=0.008) and for laptops marginal (r=0.145, p=0.058) while, as expected, both views were significantly correlated (r=0.3, p=0.004). Students’ opinions regarding the legitimacy of mobile devices usage during class was not found to be related to owning laptops.

Another study from Health Libraries Group (2005) indicates that most mobile technology applications were occurring in the United States. At the time of the review the most prevalent mobile technologies were PDAs, laptops, WAP phones. A range of advantages and disadvantages to the technology were discovered. Mobile technologies were mainly being used for clinical rather than learning applications. The students showed a low level of awareness of the technology but placed great importance to accessing learning resources from the community.

Many students embarking on a University course bring with them one or more mobile computing devices, including smart phones, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and laptop or tablet computers. The software on these devices is designed primarily to support the world of office work. Typical applications include time management, communication and productivity tools. Whilst these are of some use to students, they are not designed specifically to support their activities, such as attending lectures, reading course content, revising for exams and meeting course deadlines.

As these handheld computers and smart phones become more widely used there is an opportunity to harness them to benefit learning, as well as to provide appropriate institutional support for their use. In the shift from mass teaching to support of personal learning, it is also the responsibility of educators to ensure that students have the relevant skills and environments to succeed as self-directed learners.

Focusing on PDAs, the study described below has investigated whether students would find a handheld computer useful for supporting their learning, and in particular whether a specially designed, integrated learning organizer would be more suitable for supporting learning than the existing set of ‘mobile office’ tools, such as a digital calendar, contacts list and to-do list.

A Mobile Learning Organizer has been developed at the University of Birmingham (Holme & Sharples, 2002) and was evaluated as part of this study. A group of seventeen MSc students at the University of Birmingham were loaned wireless PDAs. The department in which the students were studying has wireless coverage throughout its five storey building. In addition to running standard Pocket PC applications, the PDAs provided a Mobile Learning Organizer which comprises an integrated suite of tools for

Students to access course material, view their timetables, communicate via email and instant messaging and organize ideas and notes. The tools were based on the Pocket Outlook Personal Information Manager (PIM), with a custom-designed interface to present the information in a form that matches the structure of student learning. For example, the calendar was presented as a series of teaching slots corresponding to the standard University timetable.

The mobile phones play as an important device in these days, since is the mobile phones is very important we choose to do a research about this topic among the Multimedia FOE students. A method section is one of the important sections in our research report it is typically describe all the action taken by the group to do this research. This section should involve all the information about our research to allow for the other researcher to replicate our study among this topic. The main purpose of the whole method section is to allow for the reader to understand what is the main point from the research and how we done with this research. Method section should describe the research participants, the materials that we used and the procedure taken by the group.

Participants:

Communication technology is the most important things in the world. It is playing an important role in the life of people nowadays. It can make the life easier by allow the people to communicate with anyone in the world. It allows you to communicate with your family, friends, and other. In other world it can keep you in touch with each other in the world. Mobile phone is the one of the greatest communication technology in the world. Mobile phone is an electronic device which is allows you to communicate with anyone in the world. Nowadays, mobile phone playing an important role in the life of people and people cannot live without it specially the teenager. The teenager used the mobile phone in the positive side and the negative side. However, the mobile phone is important for everyone specially the student. We have done a research on the importance of the mobile phone for the students. We have done this research to know how the mobile phone is importance for students nowadays specially the engineering students. Firstly, our research will be done on the faculty of engineering only in the Multimedia University. Secondly, our research will be done on 5% of the FOE student, that mean we randomly selected 200 students from the faculty of engineering from the all level no matter what is the gender of student and their nationality.

Material:

In this section of the report we are going to describe all the materials we were use it in our research. There will be two types of data collecting which are primary data, and secondary data. In the primary data we collect our points based on our knowledge so that can we start our research. In the secondary data we will collect the data from books and from internet websites. Moreover, we will come out with a questionnaire based on our search on books and internet. In the questionnaire we will used a general question for the mobile phones, question regard the education purpose can be used in the mobile phone and we use several questions such as yes/no question and strongly disagree to strongly agree. After we design the questionnaire paper we were try on our group member who is 8 members, then we will distributes among the FOE student.

Procedure:

This section is to show for the reader how the presses were. First of all, we do a meeting at the end of January 2010 to put done our idea about what is our topic for the research, after we choose a topic we started so search in the websites about any information or articles can help us in our research. At 5th February 2010 we wrote the proposal report which contains the mean information about out topic. After that, we come out with a questionnaire and distribute it among the students then we started analyze the data we got from the questionnaire. Finally, we wrote our report for the research.

Results and discussion

There are 96 % cannot live without mobile I’m talking about myself I agree no one can live without Mobile, Because it is the means of communication between people and no one can live alone You must be in touch with friends and family. There are some people use phones in the class Takes Video camera in the lesson, even if he returned home and want to study can review Lesson Video, recorded by the existing mobile, and also can be related to the family at anytime in order to ask about their Health is possible that the student is in Problem cannot Solve it alone so It will contact a friend or family even help what would he do if it does not have the Mobile? And there are some students can not enter to the internet because they do not have a computer why do students in this problemØŸ I think they will use the phones in the entry to the internet some students love the music and not have Device mp3 or mp4 or….. so Put the music in Mobile And listen music at any time they like him And also there at the university joint work between the students and some students How will meet your friends If you do not have the Mobile. There are 4 % Can live without a mobile are very few I think they do not have any friendship with any of the people or students And always in problem It is possible some of these Relaxes Because there is no Facing the problem of in their personal lives.

There are 46.50 % agree that calls the best communication of mms and SMS and GPRS because it is faster and shorten the time and the cost is not expensive, but there is a problem if he wants to call friends or family International It is very expensive. And there are 38.50 % agree that SMS the best communication of calls and mms and GPRS because it is its very cheap and Does not differentiate between whether you are sending to the outside or inside. If you sent the message to anyone and he is busy he can read it. There are 9.50 % agree that mms the best communication of calls and SMS and GPRS because it is can’t send pictures and video only in this way which is not expensive nor cheap is it normal. All these means of communication are available in the mobile phones. And there are 5.50 % agree that GPRS this Ratio is very low so this property is not available in all mobile.

There are 60 % Always put Mobile on the silent in the class I think this is better because students need to Concentration To understand what the teacher say And especially mathematics and physics This material is very important or he has a test in the class . And also there are 16 % very often put Mobile on the silent in the class Possible that he might forget or this class is not very important. And also there are 16 % sometimes put Mobile on the silent in the class Possible he have meeting in the class. Also there is 8 % never put Mobile on the silent in the class Confirmation It did not give any attention to any of the class.

There are 60 % Always put Mobile on the silent in the class I think this is better because students need to Concentration To understand what the teacher say And especially mathematics and physics This material is very important or he has a test in the class . And also there are 16 % very often put Mobile on the silent in the class Possible that he might forget or this class is not very important. And also there are 16 % sometimes put Mobile on the silent in the class Possible he have meeting in the class. Also there is 8% never put Mobile on the silent in the class Confirmation It did not give any attention to any of the class.

There are 20 % very little Using the mobile phone to access the internet education matters Have Laptop there are 56 % little Using the mobile phone to access the internet education matters balance is not enough There are 74% normal Using the mobile phone to access the internet education matters I think poring There are 12 % above normal Using the mobile phone to access the internet education matters I think is very poring. There are 38% a lot using the mobile phone to access the internet education matters check website Attendance and grades material. There are 25 % very little using the mobile phone to access the internet social network networking net low at. . There are 12 % little using the mobile phone to access the internet social network Do not like a lot of friendship formation. There are 59 % normal using the mobile phone to access the internet social network sometimes busy. There are 61 % above normal using the mobile phone to access the internet social network Have relationships with people. There are 43 % lot using the mobile phone to access the internet social network is not doing anything. . There are 41% very little using the mobile phone to access the internet banking do not know how to use the service. There are 62% little using the mobile phone to access the internet banking do not need this service. There are 23% normal using the mobile phone to access the internet banking Net on Mobile is weak. There are 32% above normal using the mobile phone to access the internet banking because they are footmen business. There are 32% a lot using the mobile phone to access the internet banking can transfer money from one account to account easily and Can charge card phones in a very short time. .

There are 15 % very little using the mobile phone to access the internet gaming Do not like to play. There are 27% little using the mobile phone to access the internet gaming Completed the battery quickly. There are 60% normal using the mobile phone to access the internet gaming they have a lot of time. There are 26% above normal using the mobile phone to access the internet gaming Search is faster on some games. There are 72% a lot using the mobile phone to access the internet gaming Love the games at any time and have time for that much. There are 19% very little using the mobile phone to access the internet browsing Costing high enough. There are 36% little using the mobile phone to access the internet browsing Posted unavailable in all places. There are 36% normal using the mobile phone to access the internet browsing whether there nothing necessary. There are 18% above normal using the mobile phone to access the internet browsing have much free time. There are 91% a lot using the mobile phone to access the internet browsing because the provision of time and you can browse the Internet at any times there is a network of net found.

There are 49 percent agree that communicate for educational purposes daily less than 30 minutes could be in charge of a project and I want to take some information from someone. There are 32.50 percent agree that communicate for educational purposes daily 30 minutes to 1 hour If there is an issue not understand, and I want one to me. There are 18.50 percent agree that communicate for educational purposes daily more than 1 hour If there was a graduation project.

There are 27percent very little use short massages as a communication method because it means tired. There are 19percent little use short massages as a communication method because it is an old means of communication. There are 27percent normal use short massages as a communication method I think their mother have a balance in the mobile. There are 11percent above normal use short massages as a communication method to learn the English language. There are 5percent very much use short massages as a communication method do not like to waste time to speak in non-beneficial.

The pie chart above indicates the percentage for number of FOE student who use the mobile phones’ cameras for educational purposes. As the graph showing that more than half the FOE students uses their mobile phones’ camera for education purposes. On the other hand the percentage of the student that not using the mobile phones’ camera is almost half which make both percentages close. The percentage of the students that are using the camera for education is 51% because of the new high resolution cameras that comes now a day in most of mobile phones in which allows the students to photograph the whiteboard if they didn’t have the time to take notes and copy them at the time that he want, however the rest also high percentage and it’s because some of the students may not have a camera in their mobile phones or it could be that the camera that they have is not that high to take clear photo for what they need to document.

As the new technology in the mobile phone in which give the student the ability to use the internet in the mobile phones at any time we want. The pie chart above shows that most students don’t access the internet throws their mobile phones, however the chart above indicates that the percentage of the internet users is not bad. The high percentage of the students who are not using the internet because the mobile phones that have the ability to connect to the world wide web and has a built-in Wi-Fi are more expansive than the ordinary mobile phones, and some students don’t use it because of the small mobile screen so they prefer the PC or the laptops to access the internet.

The mobile phones signal should be blocked in the class rooms to minimize the disturbs. The bar graph shows that most of the students disagree with this idea. Next the lowest percentage who are nether agree or disagree, after that there is a respective %age of the students whom agreeing with the idea. Most of the student disagrees because they may be needed by a friend is case of an emergence, and other agrees because of the disturb that the mobile phones causes in the class rooms when of the students’ mobile phone rings. The signal shouldn’t be block all the time in the case of any emergence as most student’s thinks.