Negative Impacts Of The Usage Of The Smartphone To Year 1 Raffles Institution Pupils What is a Smartphone? You may have heard of it, and you may guess that it involves a multi-functions phone that allows the user to be able to go online whenever there is an internet connection. If so, then you are partially correct. A Smartphone is a mobile telephone with extended features like a personal digital assistant, internet browser, etc. It can also allow the user to download games to play any time they want. Some of these Smartphone are even touch screen phones, while others have buttons similar to the keyboard of the computer. According to Chua (2011), “These do-everything gadgets, which enable their users to check , consult road maps and play3-D games on the move, now make up 90 per cent of all handsets sold here.” (p. A10). However, there are some year 1 RI students who still supports the market selling cell phones though, even though the Smartphone's popularity has overtaken the cell phone‘s, perhaps because of some possible negative effects of using the Smartphone. I believe that a research study into the positive and negative impacts of the usage of Smartphone will raise attention to all year 1 RI students, regardless of whether it is Smartphone or the regular cell phone. It is very relevant to the society because everyone would want to find out the negative impacts of a Smartphone before purchasing it. 1. Framing your research topic: (a) Negative impacts of using the Smartphone: (1) Eye-straining, since the screen is too small one needs to strain their eyes and when that is done for a long time it can affect one’s health. (2) People tend to spend more time on the Smartphone than socializing with others- this destroys relationships. (3) Social networks are accessed in class or lecture and this causes a distraction from the information about what we are learning and limits our knowledge. (b) Some possible solutions to overcome the negative impacts of using the Smartphone: (1) Educate the students about taking care of their eyes and let the eyes rest for a while after looking at the screen for too long. (2) Teachers can make the lessons more interesting to the students so that they will not go on social networks while the teacher is teaching something. (3) Convince the students that spending time on the Smartphone will prevent the user from socializing with the people around them, and this will destroy relationships between friends, families, colleagues, etc. (c) Evaluating my solutions: (1) The students may not think that what I proposed is useful and they may not believe that it actually works. (2) Some teachers may not know how to make the lessons interesting for the students or they may think that their methods of teaching the pupils is the best way and do not intend to change their methods. (3) The students may not be convinced because some may think that using the instant messaging application on their Smartphone is already socializing with people whom they know.

2. Reasons for my choice of topic: (a) I chose this topic because more and more people are currently using Smartphone instead of cell phones, which has raised attention globally and in our society. People are socializing more with such fancy and tech-savvy gadgets and this has created positive and negative impacts/effects of using the Smartphone in our society. I am interested in finding out the positive and negative impacts of Smartphone to our society so that it will raise public awareness about the impacts of using the Smartphone. (b) It helps me to fulfill the requirements by identifying the positive and negative impacts of using a Smartphone, and if it gets known, it may potentially have an impact on the society with more and more people using the Smartphone. (c) The topic benefits the society because it raises public awareness about the pros and cons about using a Smartphone and the market selling Smartphone will also be affected too. 3. Feasibility for my topic: (a) My project will be able to let the students using Smartphone know the positive and negative impacts of using a Smartphone. (b) It is possible to carry out this project because information regarding the negative and positive effects can easily be found through search engines, journals, books and research articles. I also have access to survey-making websites and a readily-available number of people to survey, for example, Year 1 RI Students. (c) My proposed course of action is logical and realistic, because it can happen and it can be easily done and most probably the students would follow my solution and agree to it. Increasing the awareness of the topic to the students is highly possible, and I may be able to generate some interest in the topic. (d) This topic has probably a lot of exposure in schools for example, Raffles Institution, because most of the students here have a Smartphone, whether is it touch screen or not, but most of them do not know the negative impacts that using a Smartphone has to them, and the negative impacts of those who are not using a Smartphone. 4. Manageability of the project: (a) tasks such as researching, writing and surveying will be divided equally among group members, with co-ordination via , wikispaces©, telephone communication, and the weekly Research Education periods that we can use to exchange our ideas and look at each others work. (b) Group work is essential to get the work going quickly and doing different parts of the project, such as discussing on writing, research, and surveying. (c) I anticipate difficulties such as time constraints and inability to work together as a group or trying to get information as soon as possible, but if we cooperate as a group and everyone does their part, then we will be able to cope with these difficulties and constraints. 5. Accessibility of the information required: (a) Newspaper articles, Magazine articles, Journals, Research papers, books and information on the internet will be relevant to the project. (b) I will obtain information from both secondary and primary sources. For the survey, It would be primary sources because the public or students are surveyed and the information is received directly. For the research, it would be best of course to find primary sources, but they are scarcely found on the internet. Logical thinking has to be used to determine the secondary sources, whether is it believable or not. (c) I anticipate problems like useless or unrelated readings or information, being criticized by members of public and the difficulty in getting citations and the right information to fit the situation, and perhaps getting people to complete the survey and not giving false information.

References Chua, Hian Hou. (2011, April 19). Hooked on smartphones. The Straits Times, p. A10. Chua, Hian Hou. (2010, August 25). Singaporeans big on smartphones. The Straits Times, p. A7. SlideShare, Inc., Initials. (2011, April). Positive effects of smartphones [Online Forum Comment]. Retrieved from effects-of-smartphones SlideShare, Inc., Initials. (2011, April). Smartphone's and their effect in the society [Online Forum Comment]. Retrieved from smartphone. (n.d.). Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon. Retrieved July 17, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Initials. (2011, July 17).Smartphone. Retrieved from