Oral Presentation – Research Education

1. Koh Teng Chun (12), Law Shao Yu (13), Lee Yuan (14), Leong Zhiming (15) & Justin Lim (16) Oral Presentation – Research Education

2. Contents • Introduction • Methodology • Survey Results and brief Analysis • Interview Results and brief Analysis • Conclusion

3. Introduction • Our aim was to identify the fundamental reason of the health effects experienced by RI Year 1 Smartphone users. • Why? • With cause comes effects • Smartphones becoming major trend in the world • We were curious about the effects of this new trend on the health of RI year 1 students

4. Introduction • RI year 1 students are seen as hardworking and tech savvy • Therefore, most of the students own smartphones and a lot of them use these gadgets in their work. • Health effects of such widespread use would be present and this is what we w

5. Methodology – Social Survey • The ordered survey questionnaire was created and administered. A total of 20 respondents were surveyed. • The survy consisted of 10 questions, with additional dempographic questions in front. • Date of conducting survey: 3 to 5 August

6. Methodology – Social Survey • The objectives of the survey were as follows: • To assess the extent of addiction of Year 1 RI students to smartphone applications. • To evaluate various methods to curb the addiction and other health problems of smartphone usage. • To assess how many students know of the existence of health applications or how many students use them. • To spread awareness among the respondents regarding health smartphone applications and their benefits.

7. Methodology – Social Survey • Their responses were tabulated and were then analysed. • There were: • 1 student from 1B • 1 student from 1C • 3 students from 1J • 1 student from 1M • 14 students from 1P

8. Methodology - Interview • We located the gaps in the information procured in the survey and then sought to cover the gaps in our interview. • We interviewed School Counsellor, Ms Jaime Ng, to seek a more professional view on effects on student’s health due to smartphone usage. • The interview was conducted on 5th September 2011.

9. Demographics • The students come from many classes, backgrounds and own different models of smartphones. • This classification is very important in telling us about the trends and patterns and also about what we did not expect. • The following slides show the demographics:

10. Demographics - Class

11. Demographics - Model of Smartphone

12. Demographics - Average Monthly Income

13. Type of Smartphone Usage • How Year 1 pupils make use of their smartphones: Fig 2. Frequency of the different types of usage of smartphones

14. Type of Smartphone Usage • Respondents indicated that they did not stick to one form of smartphone usage particularly frequently • Some forms of entertainment like games and music were very popular • Respondents also use their smartphone for work-related purposes like email, which shows that one of the main original purposes of smartphones are still in use

15. Health Effects • To investigate the direct health effects (physical and psychological) caused by the usage of smartphones • Split into 2 categories: • Physical health effects (negative and positive) of smartphone usage • Psychological health effects (negative and positive) of smartphone usage • Results in the following slides:

16. Physical Health Effects Fig 3. Negative direct health effects of smartphone usage Fig 4. Positive direct health effects of smartphone usage • Very few negative ailments at all, as seen by the fact that 17 respondents felt that there were no problems at all. • Not expected at all. • May be due to many outside factors and factors that we did not see before (e.g. most of the effects are long-term effects) • Also just as unexpected: there were not many positive health effects either • Respondents did not use their smartphones for health purposes, so smartphones have failed in improving people’s health.

17. Psychological Effects - Negative • Also few negative psychological effects as 11 out of 20 respondents selected none to negative effects • Negative psychological effects such as stress and worries may be caused by the constant compulsion for students to check their e-mail and also go to Facebook for updates. Fig 6. Negative psychological effects of smartphones on work life

18. Psychological Effects - Positive • Surprisingly many positive psychological effects. (As seen from more students choosing ‘Less stressed’ than ‘None’. ) • Positive psychological effects can be due to the fact that students can use their smartphones to do work while waiting and travelling to save time, so they would not have as much work when they return home. Fig 7. Positive psychological effects of smartphones on work life

19. Discussion • The results showed that students generally did not experience any negative effects of smartphone usage. • RI year 1 students are young and thus will tend to feel less of the impact of any negative health problems. • Busy school life → no time to be on smartphones

20. Discussion • There were few positive effects too. • Those health-promoting applications on smartphones are more suited for adults. • Also, the stressed that can be reduced from our work load is still minimal as there is a limited amount of work one can do on a smartphone. Most of our school work still cannot be done using smartphones.

21. Limitations • The classes of our respondents were not well distributed, with over half our respondents coming from our class, 1P. This contributed to a lot of similar responses and therefore, may have changed our results slightly.

22. Background • Second part of our data collection. • Patch up gaps in the survey and gain more insight about the results of the surveyfrom the view point of an experienced adult. • Interviewee: Ms. Jaime Ng SookWai – Youth guidance counsellor for Year 1 – 4.

23. What we found out… • Some of the negative psychological effects experienced by addicts are anxiety, stress, becoming irritable, sensitive and depression. They may also become slightly antisocial. • They are trapped in the virtual world – think it is better than the real world and thus stay there and become addicted and continue thinking about it even when they are not using the device.

24. Contradiction • Trapped in the virtual world and thus think it is better than the real world – why would they think these effects come from their ‘virtual heaven’? • Results from the survey may be inaccurate.

25. What we found out… • Benefits – ability to access information, ability to de-stress, make the mind more nimble. • Prevention – cannot completely ban smartphone usage – must replace it with a meaningful, productive, enjoyable activity.