Final research report "THE REAL SITUATION AND BAD EFFECST WHEN THE THUONG TIN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABUSE MOBILE PHONES" Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report THE REAL SITUATION AND BAD EFFECST WHEN THE THUONG TIN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABUSE MOBILE PHONES By Bui Thi Bich Class: D06-K52 Supervisor: Ms Dau Thi Le Hieu Faculty of Foreign Language Hanoi University of Technology May 2010 2 Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report ABSTRACT/ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The age of information and technology has brought mankind lots of the “breakthrough” inventions, in which the appearances of mobile phones with the cheap costs and high application has made the great changes for people’s lives, especially for the youth. Most of the cities- dwellers possess one or more hand phones, in particular, the secondary and college students do. The mobile phone has been admitted to offer plenty of benefits, but it is also said to create too many troubles, in deed. The fact is that the Thuong Tin high school students are abusing the mobile phones, which is complained by a number of parents and students. Therefore, this research was concerned with the overuse of mobile phones of Thuong Tin high school students. The objective of the research was to explore real situation and the bad effects that Thuong Tin students might face up with in case of abusing mobile phones. Data were gathered using the following methods: questionnaire survey for collecting the facts related to abusing hand phones, and existing information about negative consequences that students might encounter. The study was concluded that Thuong Tin high school student has been abusing hand phones with “high frequency”, i.e. they were depending on mobile phones. As the result, many of them have received the bad effects from the mobile phone itself. From this real situation together with negative effects caused by mobile phones, it is recommended that using hand phone by Thuong Tin students should be limited apart from necessary circumstances, and more consideration should be also taken into by parents before making decisions of buying their children, the students in the physical and mental growth, a mobile phone. 3 Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Overview of project Nowadays, together with the development of science and technology, the information science has been successfully developing for the last few years. Especially Vietnam has experienced the integration of mobile phone into society. Progress has been made to the point that small, reasonable mobile phones with expanded capabilities (applications) are available for innumerable uses. Therefore, there has been a massive increase in personal mobile phones over the past five years. Moreover, the growth of our economy, our higher living standards permits parents to buy their children one or more hand phones in purpose of communicating or controlling them more easily. It is undeniable that cell phones have played an important role in our lives and become one of the basic of our lives due to the enormous benefits they has brought: “They are life-saving tools when we are alone and encounter unexpected troubles” , “They are unmatched, ultra-convenient communication tools”, “They are fantastic entertainment tools” ( Linda Song, 2009). However, everything has two sides: advantages and disadvantages. Beside different benefits, cell phones have bad influences on living environment and our health; especially, “With cell phone use becoming more and more ubiquitous, particularly among high school students, and cell phones becoming more and more sophisticated, tempers run high when it comes to students, schools, and cell phones” ( Katharine Saw, 2005). The secondary students, who are in the period of physical and mental growth, are abusing cell phones without being aware of its possible harms. Together with complaints of some teachers that” I feel so annoyed and disrespected when the students in class would like to go out to receive the calls or just focus on messages instead 4 Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report of concentrating on lessons”, this phenomenon is described as “serious in the extreme’ in Thuong Tin area today and has become great interest of most parents and teachers. At present, there has yet been any study about cell phone overuse of Thuong Tin high school students to warn them of possible harms that they might not aware of. 1.2. Statement of objectives of hypothesis Therefore, the research was conducted to explore the real situation of abusing mobile phone of the pupils at Thuong Tin School and bad effects on their morality and health. The topic was implemented in hope that Thuong Tin students should limit their cell phone uses. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Source of information Most of information was retrieved from the Internet websites (research papers) which include major data related to the mobile phone uses and negative effects when abusing cell phones: * Erin Schreiner studied about the effect of mobile phone on students. He mentioned both positive and negative consequences of cell phones. It was noted that cell phones presented new opportunities and challenges for students. It was also described as a convenient and helpful tool in our daily life such as: to make phone calls, to watch films, to take photos, etc. in spite of those benefits, cell phones was argued to lead students to more distraction and off task behaviors. Because when the cell phone rang during class, everyone’s attention was drawn away from the lesson, and the flow of learning was disrupted. More importantly, it was added that many of the features of the cell phones could be used to engage inappropriate behaviors; for example, taking inappropriate pictures 5 Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report and then "sexing" them to a boyfriend or girlfriend is a growing problem. The consequences for inappropriate behavior were real and long-lasting. * Ya Na (2004) also confirmed that cell phones were bad for teens about the health and morality. Teens were advised not to use mobile phone because this equipment emits some radiation which is proved to harm cranial nerve and their immune system is weaker than those of adults. Ya Na confirmed that the number of students using cells phone was surging in China. According to Xinhua News Agency, Li Nie, a high school student from Lanzhou, the capital city of Northwest China's Gansu Province, said over of his 44 classmates had a cell phone. Teachers were concerned with the effect cell phones having on children's studies and personal social skills. Cell phones was said to become a new means for cheating during exams because students could send messages to each other. * Geoffrey Lean (2008) wrote a report titled “Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking'”. Mobile phone was concluded by cancer experts to kill far more people than smoking or asbestos. Professor Khurana – a top neurosurgeon who has received 14 awards over the past 16 years admitted that mobiles could save lives in emergencies, but concluded that “there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumors". He added that “Smoking kills some five million worldwide each year, and exposure to asbestos is responsible for as many deaths in Britain as road accidents”. In general, mobile phone is said to have bad risks on people’s health. 3. METHODOLOGY 6 Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 3.1. Research methods used There were two methods used to support my thesis including: questionnaire survey and existing information. 3.1.1. Questionnaire survey: this method was used to investigate the real situation (How, When, Where and what for the pupils use mobile phones). In fact, it was a quantitative research, i.e. the data collected from a large number of respondents (statistic figures) would be used to evaluate the reality by the researcher. 3.1.2. The existing information: this method was utilized for bad effects that the students might encounter as abusing the cell phones. The data collected contained both quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative information was the statistic figures achieved in questionnaire survey method, and the qualitative information obtained from the Internet websites related to physical and metal effects when pupils use mobile phones. 3.2 Procedures 3.2.1. Questionnaire survey The population for this study is the total number of Thuong Tin high school students who are overusing their cell phones. To answer for the research question” What is the real situation of abusing mobile phone of the pupils at Thuong Tin School”, a questionnaire survey ( respondent- completed form) was designed. It included 13 pre-coded questions in form of Yes/no, multiple- response and open- ended questions. Pupils were required to tick a cross or write down their answers. The next step was to pilot the survey. The researcher 7 Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report went to Thuong Tin high school, Ha Noi on May 5, 2010 to test on 10 pupils. The goal of this pilot survey was to check whether the content of questionnaire survey was appropriate to research objectives or not. As the result, survey design was a little amended and improved. On May 7, 2010, an official survey of Thuong Tin high school students’ use was conducted in their own school. Because of a large number of students, it would be so hard for the researcher to carry out. Therefore, only 3 classes of 3 different grades were chosen at random to fill in the survey sheet, i.e. one class from 10-grade level, one from 11-grade level and one from 12 grade levels with 10 survey sheets for each class. Because the type of information that was expected from this questionnaire was quite sensitive, the researcher show expectation to collect the correct data and would like the students to be willing to support the survey. Therefore, a total of 30 questionnaire survey sheets were distributed with the students and the same number of sheets was collected. From the results of 30 questionnaire survey were generalized to obtain the total final result. 3.2.2. The existing information To answer for the second research question “what bad effects might there be for students of Thuong Tin high school in the circumstance of abusing mobile phones?” the results of questionnaire survey and the information from the Internet Websites involving in negative consequences of cell phones were utilized. A lot of the online articles related to topic were read and saved but just the articles closely related to negative effects on students’ morality and health were selected as the literature review. The following is the list of some sources of information involved: 8 Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report * Geoffrey Lean. (2008). Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking’. Health & families. Life & style. The independent, 1. Retrieved May 23, 2010 from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/mobile-phones- more-dangerous-than-smoking-802602.html * Le Huy. (03/2009). 7 tac hai ma dien thoai di dong gay ra. Thong tin y duoc. Suc khoe va doi song, 1. Retrieved April 12, 2010 from http://suckhoedoisong.vn/2009032005514951p0c19/7-tac-hai-ma-dien-thoai-di-dong-gay- ra.htm * Katherine Saw. (2005). Students and cell phones: Controversy in the class room. Opinion and editorial. Associatedcontent, 1. Retrieved May 23, 2010 from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/4903/students_and_cell_phones_controversy.htm l?cat=9 4. RESULTS, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION There was 100% response rate to the questionnaire. The results found in this survey are shown below: Most of the Thuong Tin high school students have been using cell phones. According to the statistic figures, 97 % of students are currently possessing at least 1 cell phone and 3 % of them are not. They started to use mobile phones from the lower secondary school or just as they got access to high school. In fact, the percentage of students utilizing cell phones from lower secondary school are 20, from 10 grade are 70, from 11 grade are 10 and 0% for 12 grade. The rate of male (46.7%) and female (53.3%) is quite equal. It can be inferred that most of them have used mobile phone from the early 9 Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report ages. This actually causes bad effects on students’ health. It is demonstrated by the specialists that using mobile phones has a higher risk of cancer. Moreover, the students often play games on cell phones. The statistic has shown that 50 % of the Thuong Tin students spend less than one hour per day playing games, 40% of them spend 1-2 hours and 10 % spend more than 2 hours for “this task”. It can be seen from this figures that, on average, the students spend approximately 1 hour in games. If games are played regularly every day, the total number of time (hours) will be very great. It has been proved that the mobile phone waves have left the long- term and potential bad effects on students. The more time the students carry or wear mobile phone on their body, the higher risks of heart diseases, immune system they might suffer from. In addition, staying up late for messages is also a problem to the students. In fact, 30 % of the students admitted staying up late 3-4 times before 24h / month, 40% of them after 24h and 30 % of them with more than 10 times after 24h per month. It is the fact that most students (70 %) often stay up late to have a chat with others through messages. If this situation still goes on, and long- lasting, the students will seriously lack of sleeping and consequently weaken their bodies. “An excessively usage of mobile phones can provoke headaches, amnesia, insomnia, irritability and even advanced tiredness” (Admin, 2009). Obviously, using mobile phones early is not good for teens; the students of Thuong Tin high school are still teenagers, aren’t yet adults in deed because they aged between 16 and 18. However, it can be a modern trend when most of them use cell phone without realizing the harmful effects on their health. In fact, the percentage of students that can be aware of negative effects of mobile phone waves on the brain and central nervous system, the heart and endocrine system and reproductive function are: 10 . Final research report " ;THE REAL SITUATION AND BAD EFFECST WHEN THE THUONG TIN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABUSE MOBILE PHONES" . PHONES" Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report THE REAL SITUATION AND BAD EFFECST WHEN THE THUONG TIN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABUSE MOBILE PHONES By Bui Thi Bich