Koh Teng Chun (12), Law Shao Yu (13), Lee Yuan (14), Leong Zhiming (15) & Justin Lim (16) 1

Contents  Introduction  Methodology  Survey Results and brief Analysis  Interview Results and brief Analysis  Conclusion 2

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 3

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 4

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

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.

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

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 5 th September 2011.

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: 9

Demographics - Class Class No. of Respondents % of Respondents 1B15 1C15 1J315 1M15 1P1470 Total

Demographics - Model of Smartphone ModelNo. Of Respondents% of Respondents Apple525 Blackberry210 LG210 Nokia15 Samsung525 Sony Ericsson 525 Total

Demographics - Average Monthly Income Income(in $)No. Of Respondents% of Respondents Unknown < Total

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

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 , which shows that one of the main original purposes of smartphones are still in use 14

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: 15

Physical Health Effects 16 Fig 3. Negative 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. Fig 4. Positive direct health effects of smartphone usage

Psychological Effects - Negative 17 Fig 6. Negative psychological effects of smartphones on work life  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 and also go to Facebook for updates.

Psychological Effects - Positive 18 Fig 7. Positive psychological effects of smartphones on work life  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.

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 19

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. 20

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. 21

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

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.

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.

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.

Conclusion  The usage of smartphones have very little health effects on Year One students, either positive or negative.  One reason may be that smartphones are still not as significant in our lives as computers, therefore, Year One students are not very affected by smartphone usage.  Year One students are part of the tech-savvy generation, therefore they are more accustomed to using smartphones. 26

Problems faced  One of our biggest problems would be time management. Being a big group of five, each of our daily timetables are different due to CCAs and family matters, thus our computer usage time and availability to discuss this project is greatly limited.  Another problem, or setback of ours would be the large amounts of information gathered in this project, where organizing them required some time and effort. This was also one of the factors leading to the problem of time management. 27

Acknowledgements  We would like to thank our teacher mentors Dr Raphael and Mr Prashant for their guidance and support.  We would also like to thank Ms Jaime Ng Sook Wai for allowing us to interview her and all other respondents to our survey.  You, our wonderful audience, for listening to our presentation. 28

Thank You! 29