Analysis of statistical date about use of mobile inelaerning

Use of Mobile Phones by Male and Female Students Report

Name

Date

Introduction

A mobile phone or mobile is an electronic device used for mobile telecommunication over a cellular network of specialized base stations known as cell sites. In addition to the standard voice function current mobile phones may support many additional services and accessories, such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for access to the internet, gaming, Bluetooth, infrared, camera with video recorder and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video, MP3 player radio and GPS thus making the newly version of the mobile phones been branded as smart phone.

The smart phone, in English, is defined as a mobile phone that performs many of the functions of a computer. As such, it typically has a touch screen interface, Internet access, and an operating system capable of running downloaded applications. While recently the words smart phone, mobile phone, and cell phone have come to be used interchangeably, two decades ago, mobile phones and cell phones were used primarily for making and receiving calls and for SMS messaging.

As far as university male and female students are concerned, smart phones have increasingly become a major part of our lives due to their numerous benefits, such as easy accessibility to information, social connectivity, workplace applications, convenience, mobility, size, and so forth. Moreover, smart phones now play a critical role in the health field as both health professionals and their patients seek to promote the good health of the patient. However, in recent years, there has also been increasing concern on the negative consequences of smart phone use. Before the widespread use of smart phones, a study in Saudi Arabia linked the use of mobile phones with numerous health hazards, including headaches (21.6%), sleep disturbances (4. %), tension (3.9%), fatigue (3%), and dizziness (2.4%) mostly to the university students. Although addiction is a term arguably overused in society, the conceptualization of addiction remains controversial even among experts in the field as a condition warranting more clinical research and experts before making it a formal problem to be addressed in books.

In regard to this, a research had been conducted in Saudi Arabia through administering a questionnaire over the university students and data collected and analysis made. This cross-sectional study was conducted in King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia between September 2014 and March 2015. An electronic self administration experience should be discovered before being considered for inclusion in the main book as a formal disorder.

Objectives:

To investigate the prevalence and correlates of smart phones addiction among university students by administered questionnaire and the problematic use of mobile phones scale were used.

Results:

Out of 2945 study subjects, 27.2% stated that they spent more than 8 hours per day using their smart phones. Seventy-five percent used at least 4 applications per day, primarily for social networking and watching news. As a consequence of using the smart phones, at least 43% had decrease sleeping hours, and experienced a lack of energy the next day, 30% had an unhealthier lifestyle (ate more fast food, gained weight, and exercised less), and 25% reported that their academic achievement been adversely affected. There are statistically significant positive relationships among the 4 study variables, consequences of smart phone use (negative lifestyle, poor academic achievement), number of hours per day spent using smart phones, years of study, and number of applications used, and the outcome variable score. The mean values of the problematic use of mobile phones scale were 60.8 with a median of 60.

Conclusion:

University students in Saudi Arabia are at risk of addiction to smart phones; a phenomenon that is associated with negative effects on sleep, levels of energy, eating habits, weight, exercise, and academic performance.

Methods

Participants

The current study was conducted among university students attending King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The study included both male and female students from all KSU colleges. Out of the targeted 10,000 study subjects, 2945 (29.45%) responded to our study. More than 50% of the respondents were in the age group of 20-24 years, and 43.6% were male. The study obtained all required ethical approvals from the institutional review board at the Faculty of Medicine, KSU, Riyadh Saudi Arabia.

Measures

We developed a self-administered questionnaire specifically for the purpose of this study that included 3 major sections: socio-demographic information, addiction risk facts, and consequences of smart phone use. For example, under the section of pattern of current use of smart phones, one of the questions was: on average how many hours you spend on your smart phone on a daily basis? The addiction phenomenon was evaluated by a validated Arabic version of the problematic use of mobile phones (PUMP) scale. The PUMP scale is a 20-item questionnaire that assesses mobile phone use based on the DSM-5 criteria for substance use disorder. The PUMP scale demonstrates a single factor structure, with excellent internal consistency. It also displays convergent validity when compared to existing measures of smart phone dependency and self-reported feelings of addiction to the smart phone. The respondents answered each PUMP scale question on a Like-type scale-strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree-where strongly disagree corresponds to one and strongly agree corresponds to 5. For example, the first item of the PUMP scale is: when I decrease the amount of time spent using my cell phone, I feel less satisfied. The PUMP score is calculated by summing up the scores for the individual questions such that higher scores indicate higher levels of addiction. The PUMP scale was translated and validated in Arabic by the same authors. The PUMP original English version was first translated into Arabic by 2 linguistic specialists, fluent in both English and Arabic. Then, another linguistic specialist, fluent in both English and Arabic, carried out back translation into English. During each stage, the translated or back-translated versions and the original scale were compared and any differences were discussed and resolved to get one final version. The content of the study questionnaire as well as the Arabic version of the PUMP scale were validated by experts in addiction, technology, and psychiatry to ensure the relevance and applicability of the various questions. The survey, including the study questionnaire and the Arabic PUMP scale, was piloted using a small number of college students (n=20) and then repeated 2 weeks after for reliability. Based on the feedback, the wording of some questions was modified before being widely distributed.

Data analysis

Distribution of university students in Saudi Arabia (n=2945)

Variables (n)

Age groups (in years)

<19 518

20-24 1396

>25 1031

Gender (male)

Marital status

Single 2091

Married 814

Divorced or widowed 40

Nationality (Saudi) 2792

College

Administration finance 480

Medicine 216

Arts 1025

Languages 919

Law and political science 300

Others 5

Academic degrees

Bachelor’s degree 2560

Masters degree 341

PhD 44

Distribution of variables related to the use of smart phones among Saudi University students.

Variables (n)

Duration of smart phone use (yrs)

<1 98

1-3 800

>3 2047

No of applications 5.03+-2.3

Purpose of using the applications

Watching news 1092

Social networking 1300

Academic performance tasks 300

Religious 145

Others 108

Distribution of responses towards consequences of smart phone use and its correlation PUMP score scale among Saudi university students.

Independent variables related to the total score of problematic use of smart phones using stepwise multiple regression analysis among Saudi university students.

Statistical analysis

The data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows version 21.0 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA). Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequencies, and percentages) were used to describe the quantitative and categorical variables. Student’s t-test for independent samples and one-way analysis of variance to compare the mean scores of the PUMP across the categorical study variables with 2 and 3 categories, followed by post hoc Turkey test were also employed. Karl-Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to observe the linear relationship between the total score of the PUMP scale and the quantitative study variables. Stepwise regression analysis was used to identify the variables that were independently related to the total score on the PUMP scale. A p-value of <0.05 and 95% confidence intervals were used to report the statistical significance and the precision of the results.