Does owning a Smartphone increase the possibility of gaming addiction among ri year 1 students?

The invention of the Smartphone came with its advantages and disadvantages. Despite the many breakthrough technologies that resulted in the Smartphone’s invention, many people face the biggest problem that eludes them from the real benefits of what a Smartphone can provide – addiction. Addiction has been prevalent since the invention of portable gaming devices. However, due to overwhelming addiction to these Smartphone, this brings about a new type of addiction, Smartphone addiction. Smartphone addiction is the excessive usage of the Smartphone, which includes activities from the surfing of the internet, checking social networking sites like Facebook and even to playing games on Smartphone and is mostly prevalent in youths. The addition of the touch screen function to regular video games have made them even more interesting and bringing to light a new way of entertainment.

1. 
   Framing your research topic:
   
   1. 
      Some problems in finding out whether there is an increase in possibility of gaming addiction in RI Year 1 students due to owning a Smartphone.
      
      1. 
         Some students may have gotten their first Smartphone at a very young age and may not have experienced any form of gaming prior to getting their Smartphone.
         
      2. 
         Some students may not be able to correctly judge and remember their gaming experience prior to getting their Smartphone.
         
      3. 
         Some Smartphones may differ from others in terms of gaming applications available due to difference in operating systems, thus having an unfair difference from video games.
         
      4. 
         Despite many Year 1 RI students already owning a Smartphone, many of them have recently bought their Smartphone and the effects of addiction may kick in later on.
         
   2. 
      Some solutions
      
      1. 
         Select data from those who had sufficient ‘experience’ in video gaming before using Smartphones.
         
      2. 
         Differentiate the data collected from people with different types of Smartphones.
         
      3. 
         Select data from those who have experienced about 1 year of owning a Smartphone/ Change my survey targets from RI Year 1 to RI Year 2 or 3 as they would likely have more experience with their Smartphones.
         
   3. 
      Evaluating my solutions
      
      1. 
         For (a) and (c), this would restrict my data to a very small group of people and would thus make my conclusion not as significant as I would have wanted it to be.
         
      2. 
         This is quite reasonable as it would give more specific results and reach out to target audience better.
         
2. 
   Reasons for my choice of topic:
   
   1. 
      I chose this topic because since the idea given to us was that we must do a project on Smartphones, I felt that since addiction is a topic much talked about with relation to Smartphones in schools nowadays and I find myself playing my friends iPhone rather frequently, I wanted to find out the effects that Smartphones have on gaming addiction in youth.
      
   2. 
      This helps me better understand whether a Smartphone provides more benefits than disadvantages to the user as I have always wanted a Smartphone to use and play with.
      
   3. 
      I feel that by researching on this topic, I can help answer many questions that people have on the effects of that Smartphones have on youth nowadays as it is a widely debatable subject.
      
3. 
   Feasibility for my topic:
   
   1. 
      I think that my project is quite feasible as my scope is only on RI Year 1 students so my surveying would not have to reach out to the public and many of the Year 1 students would be very accommodative in doing my survey as they also have their RE project to do.
      
   2. 
      My topic is one that the students can answer from the top of their heads, do not require prior research and can easily form conclusions from the results that I would gather.
      
   3. 
      Despite this project done on a small scale, there are many conclusions that can be derived from my results that would be about the same among other youths/teenagers specifically.
      
4. 
   Manageability of the project:
   
   1. 
      Task such as researching, writing, surveying and interviewing will be distributed equally among my group members with coordination via email, instant messaging and telephone, etc. and the weekly RE period will be a time for us to take a look at what we have done, review it, and keep check of how much work we have done and how much more needs to be done.
      
   2. 
      Group work will be essential while doing various parts of the project, such as discussing how to write the final report, doing research and of course conducting the survey when we need to complete it in the shortest time possible.
      
   3. 
      I think that there will be several bumps along the way, such as time constraints and group members not being cooperative, etc., but I think that we can overcome these difficulties and will still be able to submit a quality piece of work.
      
5. 
   Accessibility of information required
   
   1. 
      Due to the Smartphone being a current day topic, much information can be found on the internet, newspapers and even books on Smartphones. Although not much research has been conducted on the topic that I would be researching on, we can still find sufficient information from various sources about various aspects of our project and be able to gather sufficient data for our project. We will get accurate and comprehensive sources to ensure that we get a full perspective on our project. We will also corroborate our sources with others to ensure that our information is accurate and precise.
      
   2. 
      Most of our information will be from primary sources as there are youths who have been Smartphone addicts before and we can possibly survey or interview them. Other information will be gathered from my fellow batch mates to get more information from the surveys.
      
   3. 
      I have anticipated problems such as useless responses to my survey, students treating my survey as nonsense, students not bothering to answer the question with full understanding and in depth thinking. These might change the outcome of my survey as if a large portion of those that I survey give such responses; my overall results may show differently from what is actually happening.
      

Davis, S. (2011, July 18). Addicted to your smartphone?. Retrieved from

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/addicted-your-smartphone-what-to-do

Nielson, & Telstra, (2011, July 12). Smartphone Addiction Continues to Climb.

Retrieved from http://www.marketingmag.com.au/articles/news/5515/smartphone-addiction-continues-to-climb/

Simple Techniques for Controlling Your Email Inbox. (2011). Retrieved from

http://www.legalsupportpersonnel.com/legal-industry-insight/smartphone-addiction/

Retrieved from http://www.edrugrehab.com/video-game-internet-addictions