In modern classrooms, instructors face many challenges as they compete for students’ attention among a variety of communication stimuli. Rapid growth of mobile computing, including smart phones and tablets, presents a double-edged problem: along with previously unimaginable access to information come previously unforeseen distractions. Of wide concern to many instructors is the potential distraction caused by students using their mobile devices to text, play games, check Facebook, tweet, or engage in other activities available to them in a rapidly evolving digital terrain. That concern has potential merit; recent statistics from the Pew Foundation show that the median number of daily texts for older teens rose from 60 in 2009 to 100 in 2011 (Lenhart, 2012). Moreover, 64% of teens who own cell phones have texted during class, even in schools where cell phones are technically banned (Lenhart, Ling, Campbell, & Purcell, 2010). Those texts potentially come at the expense of learning, as texting during class reduces students’ ability to self-regulate and give sustained attention to classroom tasks (Wei, Wang, & Klausner, 2012).
Cell phones, and the broader array of digital mobile devices, pose unique communication challenges for both users and those with whom they interact. Some critics argue that texting and other digital communication behavior potentially diminish key social skills like effective listening. As one commentator noted, ‘‘We think of phones as a communication tool, but the truth is they may be just the opposite’’ (Skenazy, 2009, np). Other views suggest that people are adapting to new communication norms in an increasingly digital world, learning to quickly attend to, process, and respond to multiple and sometimes simultaneous messages (Davidson, 2011). Given themany possible ways that digital communication tools will continue to influence practices of teaching and learning (Schuck & Aubusson, 2010), instructional communication scholars should enact programmatic research to understand how these tools impact classroom communication and subsequent learning outcomes.
The present study builds on past research by examining whether texting or posting to a social network site has negative impacts on students’ note-taking behaviors and subsequent performance on exams. Participants took part in simulated classroom conditions where they watched a recorded lecture, took notes over the lecture, and were then tested over lecture content. There were three conditions in the study: a control group and two experimental groups. The control group simply watched the lecture, took notes on the lecture, and answered exam questions over lecture content. The other two groups engaged in the same activities as the control group, but also took part in simulated texting/Facebook interactions during the lecture; one group had a low frequency of texts/posts, and another had a high frequency. By using simulated text messages and Facebook posts, the objective of the study was to determine what effects, if any, these distractions had on student learning.
Literature Review
DOOGEE DG580 phone Usage and Features
Modern phones have a variety of features that simply were not possible years ago: ZOPO ZP520 phones are not just for voice communication anymore (Ishii, 2006). College students can access the Internet, send or receive text messages, check email, and even video chat with others quite literally from the palm of their hand. In addition, students can access a variety of social network sites (SNS) from their mobile phones. Scholars boyd and Ellison (2008) explain that SNS are online services that allow people to create a profile, create a list of other users who share a connection with the user, and view the lists of connections created by others within that system. For the purposes of the current study, we use the technical term SNS in place of other terminology (e.g., social networking sites) because SNS better conveys the way in which users communicate with others via these systems. boyd and Ellison note that other terms, like social networking sites, emphasize relationship initiation and users forming connections with others with whom they might not normally have come in contact. However, the term SNS better conveys the way in which users communicate with other people they have connected with. As boyd and Ellison put it, ‘‘They are primarily communicating with people who are already part of their extended social network’’ (2008, p. 211). Thus far, survey data indicate that young adults are highly active users of SNS and other communication tools like text messaging.
Texting, the ability to send short messages to another person, is perhaps one of the more popular features of modern cell phones. Roughly 94% of 1834-year-olds report that they send or receive text messages using their phones, and 63% of this age group access the Internet using their phone (Zickuhr, 2011). There is little question that students’ communication habits regularly lead them to text while in class. Research conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 1417year-olds who text typically send and/or receive roughly 60 text messages a day. Furthermore, 64% of teens with DOOGEE DG580 phones have texted in class, and 23% access SNS via their phone (Lenhart, 2010). Indeed, researchers at one university found that 62% of students admitted that they had texted while in class (Ransford, 2009). Campbell (2006) reported that young people ages 1823 are more tolerant of ZOPO ZP520 phones in the classroom when compared to older age brackets. Essentially, ‘‘Young people tend to have very positive perceptions of mobile phones and regard the technology as an important tool for social connection’’ (Campbell, 2006, p. 290).
Besides texting, accessing the Internet and SNS has become a prolific communication activity among college students. Research shows that roughly 75% of online adults (1824 year olds) have profiles on an SNS, and 89% of online adults use those sites to keep in touch with friends (Lenhart, 2009). In regard to teens, 77% of teens report that they contact their friends daily via text messaging, and 33% do so via SNS (Lenhart, 2010). Statistics from Facebook, which as of June 2011 had over 500 million active users, documents that over 50% of the users log in each day (Facebook, 2011). According to Facebook’s own statistics, over 250 million active users access Facebook through a mobile device, and ‘‘People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users’’ (Facebook, 2011, p. 1). In short, one might reasonably conclude that students’ use of Facebook during class would be similar to rates of texting. However, posting to Facebook and sending a text message do serve different purposes. For example, a text message is typically sent to one recipient and is inherently interpersonal in nature. A Facebook post, or a status update, is generally viewable by a wider audience or even publicly available. Although texting and posting can serve different purposes, the physical act of both activities on a mobile device is fundamentally the same (i.e., users engaging in communication activities via their mobile device). Because texting and posting both require the user to actively interact with her/his mobile device, these potentially distinct communication activities would reasonably manifest in similar ways and with similar effects. As such, the remainder of this article will use the term texting/posting to refer to both activities. This labeling approach provides conceptual clarity while also incorporating both forms of communication.
Clearly, texting/posting offers new communication channels that are frequently used by young adults to stay in contact with others. This ability to stay connected with others has allowed today’s college students to remain constantly connected to other people, something that was not the case even a decade ago. As a practicalmatter, instructors remain concerned that such connection to the social world disconnects students from learning, leading some to ban all electronic communication devices from lectures (Steinfatt, 2009). Both theoretical and empirical evidence supports this concern, suggesting that students potentially split their attention in ways that cause them to miss important details presented during class, an outcome that could have potentially damaging effects on their achievement (Kraushaar & Novak, 2010; Wei et al., 2012).http://diqirenge.bloguez.com/diqirenge/6016575/Actions_Exercise_of_New_Cellular_Cellphone_User
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