Smartphones: a boon or a bane?
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- II. Survey Methodology
- Profile of 20 respondents by ownership of a smartphone and wanting of smartphone
- Want to have smartphone No. of respondents Percentage of respondents
| Raffles Institution
Secondary One Research Education Project Survey Report 2011
An investigation into how smartphone gaming addiction affects RI Year One 1J students and methods to curb smartphone gaming addiction Teacher-Mentor: Dr. Iluyomade Raphael Funwa 1J 2011 Maximilian Lim (16) Nathanael Goh (17) Ng Kai Sing (18) Fintan Pan (19) Ryan Phua (20) Year 1 Research Education 2011 Social Survey Report An investigation into how smartphone gaming addiction affects RI Year One 1J students and methods to curb smartphone gaming addiction I. Introduction Statement of Problem Smartphones are widely used by many people in our world. It has the same functions as normal phones but have access to the Internet and a wide array of smartphone games. While they could greatly improve your child’s hand to eye coordination skills and make your kid tech savvy, too much time spent with those devices could also turn him/her anti-social due to the lack of time spent interacting with other people and actually communicating. Ever walked into a Starbucks and noticed a table full of people on their smartphones/laptops/tablets and not talking to one another even though they’re sitting together? I’m sure nobody wants their kids to end up like that but alas, it’s one of the effects that touchscreen devices have on today’s generation. (Wong, 2011) Furthermore, the abundance of smartphones leads to even more people getting addicted to such games, especially amongst adolescents. Purpose of Study From our research, we seek to find out if students in 1J that may be addicted to smartphone games and how it affects their behaviour and thinking. Simultaneously, we hope to highlight what addiction to smartphone games could result in and provide help and solutions to these problems. We also aim to create awareness that smartphone game addiction is just like alcohol or substance abuse, as it can affect one’s thinking and future. II. Survey Methodology A social survey was conducted, from 1 August to 3 August, From our research, we seek to find out if students in 1J were addicted to smartphone games. Some factors that we investigated on to figure out if the student is addicted was: (i) Whether he looks forward to finish class/chores/meals quickly to play games. (ii) Whether he is obsessed with games (whether his life revolves around smartphone gaming) (iii) Whether he feels bored or uncomfortable without smartphone games. (iv) Whether when he starts playing smartphone games, he is unwilling to put them down even though there is a specific reason to. A structured questionnaire was designed and administered to a random sample of twenty 1J students age 12 to 13. The respondents were selected randomly, to ensure the results were representative of the population. The 10 questions in the survey form were clear and mostly closed-answer questions to prevent the respondents from being turned off and not doing the questionnaire completely. Comments and feedback from the teacher were incorporated into the questionnaire before the actual social survey was carried out. Due to the sensitivity of some of the questions concerning smartphone usage patterns and personal thoughts, the respondents were assured that all of their answers would remain confidential and only for the sole purpose of this investigation. A response rate of 100% was achieved from the social survey. Profile of 20 respondents by ownership of a smartphone and wanting of smartphone:
III. Results and Analysis From the full 20 results we have obtained, observations could be made to determine the people addicted to smartphones. As said above, we are focusing on 4 main symptoms of smartphone addiction in our survey reports. Symptom (i) Out of 20 respondents, 11 were required to respond to the question as they already stated in the demographics question that they owned or had smartphones. The question was “I look forward to finish my classes/chores/meals/homework quickly so I can continue playing with my smartphone.” The options given were ‘Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Neutral (N), Disagree (D) or Strongly Disagree (SD)’. In fig. 1, 36% of the respondents answered “Disagree”, together with fig. 1.2, this would show that the majority of the respondents feel that they play smartphone games during their free time and when they are not playing, they are not constantly thinking of playing the smartphone games even when they are doing other things. From the responses in fig. 4.2, it can be concluded that the majority of respondents are very committed in doing their homework, or any task, and would only play smartphone games during their free time. Therefore, this would show that most of the respondents do not look forward to finish class/chores/meals quickly to play games. 
Fig. 1 Answers to the question "I look forward to finish my classes/chores/meals/ homework quickly so i can continue playing with my smartphone.” 
Fig. 1.2 Respondents answers for question 5, "Where to you usually play smartphone games?" Symptom (ii) In the data used for this section, there are only 19 respondents. This is because survey number 20’s response to the question was impossible and illogical. Hence, it was excluded and only the remaining 19 questionnaires were used. The respondents were required to list their top 3 games and the duration they play those games on weekdays and weekends respectively. From Fig. 2.1, non-smartphone owners play smartphone games more on weekends. This could be because they have more time and/or go to relatives’ or friends’, that have smartphones, houses on weekends, allowing them to play smartphone games more then. Hence, possible methods to help them curb their addiction would be to not go to that particular friend’s house or relative’s house or asking the person to refrain from lending his/her to the respondent. From Fig. 2.2, it can also be seen that smartphone owners play more on weekdays as compared to weekdays. However, the graph also shows that the percentage of respondents that play more than 121 minutes of smartphone games on weekdays is twice as much as than that of the respondents that play on weekends. This discrepancy in the results could be due to the small sample size of only 20 respondents as well as the demographic shortfall in randomly selecting respondents. Comparing both figures, smartphone owners overall play smartphone games for a longer duration of time on all days of the week as compared to that of the non-smartphone owners. 
Fig. 2.1 Amount of time spent on smartphones games by non-smartphone owners 
Fig. 2.2 Amount of time spent on smartphones games by smartphone owners Symptom (iii) Out of the 20 respondents, only the smartphone owners (55% of the sample) were required to respond to the question “I feel bored or uncomfortable without smartphone games”. The options were ‘Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Neutral (N), Disagree (D) or Strongly Disagree (SD)’. Answering “Neutral (N)” to this question would indicate that the respondent agrees that feeling bored/uncomfortable without smartphone games would occur to him occasionally. Therefore, we would count those who answered “Neutral (N)” to be agreeing to the statement. 54% of the respondents agreed to the question (those who answered “Strongly Agree (SA)”, “Agree (A)” or “Neutral (N)”). This shows that the majority of the respondents have to play smartphone games for an excessive duration of time to feel comfortable. Therefore, this would show that majority of the respondents would feel uncomfortable/bored if they do not play with smartphone games. 
Fig. 3 Responses of smartphone owners to the question “I feel bored or uncomfortable without smartphone games” Symptom (iv) Symptom (iv) is “Whether when he starts playing smartphone games, he is unwilling to put them down even though there is a specific reason to”. This symptom is a significant symptom because it indirectly can tell us whether the person is addicted to smartphone games, by showing his connection and attachment to the smartphone game. As I analyse the following graphs, keep in mind that the symptom we are trying to pull out from these data values is “whether he is unwilling stop playing even if there is a specific reason”. From fig. 4.1 we can see that no responder strongly agreed to this question. But 9% of respondents agreed to this question and almost 30% were neutral. Being neutral in this case means that the respondent is unwilling to stop playing at times. Therefore, a staggering 39% of respondents exhibited this symptom. From fig. 4.21, we can see that almost 9% strongly agreed to this question, almost 19% agreed and almost 35% were neutral. Being neutral in this case means that the respondent does not like to be stopped sometimes. Thus, a great value of 63% among smartphone owners exhibited this symptom. From Fig. 4.22 we can see that only a small number of people agreed to this question, while most respondents were neutral. From this and fig. 4.21, we can see that non-smartphone owners seem to exhibit this symptom much lesser. 
Fig. 4.1 Responses of respondents who are smartphone owners to the question “When I am playing with my phone, I am unwilling to stop even when there is a reason to stop” 
Fig. 4.21 Responses of respondents who are smartphone owners to the question, "I don't like when something/someone stops me from playing with my smartphone.” 
Fig. 4.22 Responses of respondents who are non-smartphone owners to the question, "I don't like people stopping me from playing with their smartphones." IV. Discussion As mentioned in methodology, our objective of this survey was to to find out the percentage of 1J students that are addicted to smartphone gaming. Our factors that determined “addiction” were (i) Whether he looks forward to finish class/chores/meals quickly to play games. (ii) Whether he is obsessed with games (whether his life revolves around smartphone gaming) (iii) Whether he feels bored or uncomfortable without smartphone games. (iv) Whether when he starts playing smartphone games, he is unwilling to put them down even though there is a specific reason to. We will now go through each factor thoroughly and carefully to evaluate our finding’s implications and limitations. Factor (i) From our findings, we can conclude that the majority of the respondents do not look forward to finish class/chores/meals quickly to play games, which is of great importance; as if a brochure is created or talks on curbing smartphone gaming addiction are given, we would have to tailor them such that little emphasis is placed upon smartphone game addicts being quick to complete class/chores/games in order to play smartphone games, as it has been proved otherwise by this survey. By doing so, it would let people become more aware that smartphone game addicts are not likely to rush through tasks in order to get back to their smartphone game. This would boost the moral of smartphone game addicts, allowing them an easier and less tormenting way out of their problem.
We can conclude from our findings that non-smartphone owners play more on weekends while it is the opposite for smartphone owners: they play more on weekdays. This is a very crucial finding, as there is a huge discrepancy between smartphone owners and non-smartphone owner. This can result in two different final products to help us curb smartphone gaming addiction, one for smartphone owners and one for non smartphone owners. Factor (iii) For factor (iii), we concluded that majority of the people would feel uncomfortable/bored if they do not play with smartphone games. This is very important as this piece of information could set off new investigations to find out why the addicts feel this way without their smartphone games, and from that, new methods of helping them to endure and abstain from excessive amounts of time and thought put into smartphone games. Helping the smartphone game addicts realise the reasons for their addiction can also help to identify key factors causing their addiction, and resulting in new treatments to solve their problem of smartphone gaming addiction. Factor (iv) A staggering 39% of respondents exhibited are unwilling to stop playing smartphone games even when there is a reason to stop. A great value of 63% among smartphone owners don't like when something/someone stops them from playing with my smartphone. We also concluded that non-smartphone owners seems to exhibit factor (iv): “When he starts playing smartphone games, he is unwilling to put them down even though there is a specific reason to.” Combining the 3 results, we find that many smartphone owners do not like being stopped from playing but still stop anyway. This shows that they have an “attachment” to the smartphone game, which is a significant factor of being addicted to smartphone games. V. Conclusion Our survey objective was to to find out if 1J students were addicted to smartphone gaming. From the combined findings of all four factors, we can conclude that there is indeed a large population of 1J students who are addicted to smartphone gaming. Our interesting finding is that the gaming habits of non-smartphone owners are very different from smartphone owners, in some cases, even the opposite! The implication of our findings show that the methods of curbing smartphone gaming addiction in 1J students will be different between smartphone and non-smartphone users. VI. References Wong G. (2011, April 22). Today’s children are the ‘Touch Generation’, retrieved 14 August, 2011, from http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/04/todays-children-touch-generation/ Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 44.14 Kb. Share with your friends:
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