IMPACT OF THE USE OF SMART DEVICES ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study
Globalization has changed our lives and one of the ways in which it is changing our lives, everyday, is how we communicate; thanks to advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). One of the ICT’s which is seeing rapid advancement is Mobile Phone. Mobile phone is popular since the late 1990s (Meek, 2006) and today, with 7 billion mobile connections worldwide and unique mobile subscriptions of over 3.5 billion (Twum, 2011), they are very popular with young people and are commonplace in our educational institutions. These phones are no more just voice communication tools. Functions like short message service (SMS) or texting have become global phenomenon. Not many of us keep wallet photos of loved ones. Now we save photos in our mobile phones, and view them on a touch of the screen.
Mobile phones have become an almost essential part of daily life since their rapid growth in popularity in the late 1990s, Ling (2004). A nationwide survey conducted in 2010 shows that mobile phones are the most necessary medium of communication for adolescents. It has virtually affected the society’s accessibility, security, safety and coordination of business and social activities and has hence become a part of culture of the whole world. Ling (2004), states that traditional agents of socialization are families and schools. With the expansion of educational system as a result of the need for highly skilled workers lead to the school system taking increasing larger responsibilities in socialization. Surprisingly, research on the influence of mobile phone on our schools today has not been given much attention. There is the conflicting priority of young people, parents and teachers in relation to the mobile phone device, with teachers more concerned about issues such as discipline in the classroom and parents worried about means of contacting their children at every point in time.
