The real situation and bad effecst when the thuong tin high school students abuse mobile phones - Bùi Thị Bích

Nội dung text: The real situation and bad effecst when the thuong tin high school students abuse mobile phones - Bùi Thị Bích

1. Final research report "THE REAL SITUATION AND BAD EFFECST WHEN THE THUONG TIN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABUSE MOBILE PHONES"
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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 4
5. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report disrespected when the students in class would like to go out to receive the calls or just focus on messages instead 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 5
6. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 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 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. 6
7. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 3. METHODOLOGY 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 7
8. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 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 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 8
9. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 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: * Geoffrey Lean. (2008). Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking’. Health & families. Life & style. The independent, 1. Retrieved May 23, 2010 from 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 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 ml?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 9
10. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 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 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 10
11. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 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: 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 brain heart reproduction not hear of Figure 4.1 Bad effects of mobile waves on people’s health From the results of figure 4.1, it can be concluded that most of the students have just heard of one bad consequence of mobile phone, i.e. they haven’t had the sufficient information (knowledge) of possible harms. That is one of the reasons why the Thuong Tin high school students are currently free to use hand phones. It can be likely to confirm that one of the main reasons buy their children a mobile phone are to control (contact) students more easily. However, the students use cell phones with different purposes as below: 11
12. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report The goal of using cell phones of Mean Scores The maximum percentages students Times for contacting family/ week 2.03 70% ( 0-2 times) Number of messages/ day 86.66 50% ( > 100 messages) Time to reply sms or phone call/ minute 1.8 90% ( 1-2 minutes) Table 4.2 The purpose of using mobile phone Although students’ parents have thought that their children call them more often but in fact, the figures in Table 4.2 shows that on average per week, the parents just receive the calls from their children 2.03 times, a low frequency compared the number of days of a week. Most of students (70%) have made a phone call in case of emergency or necessity. However, the time and money spent on messages are quite large. 50% of the Thuong Tin students send more than 100 messages per day, while the time to receive and reply the messages on average from 1-2 minutes. So, the total of time for messages a day is in the range of 100- 200 minutes, a large amount of time. Not only consuming time and money, the bad influences of electromagnetic fields and cell phones waves on the students’ health are very great because the time they carry the phones with them or take the phone on their hands is too long. It is undeniable that the cell phones have positively made the big changes in daily life; for example, 23.4 % of Thuong Tin students found that cell phones help their lives become more interesting and comfortable because they use phones to contact with their friends in a far distance easily with the cheap cost through the messages system. However, 46.7% of the students agreed that using cell phones has created some troubles, 12
13. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report disturbances, and make them become lazier at school unexpectedly. Instead of concentrating on study at night, the students was interrupted by the messages or phone calls from their friends or relatives; if the process of sending and receiving messages is maintained , their study might be ignored unintentionally. More worrisomely, when the students fail to focus on their task, their grades will be lower. The ignorance of their study for a long time has created a big loss of knowledge, which makes them unlikely to get good marks during the exams. However, they still manage to surmount this obstacle by cell phones. “Students use them to cheat at their exams. They rather go out and not study for their exams, because they can count on their mobile phones. There are many ways of cheating at an exam. One of them is by saving in your massages the solutions of your exam’s questions and then all you have to do is to open the folder with the messages and start copying” (Admin, 2009). Therefore, if Thuong Tin students overuse, i.e. depend too much on cell phones, they has turned themselves into untruthful students during the exams. Finally, table 4.3 below shows the point of views about abusing of Thuong Tin students with mean score is 1.6. A mean of 1.6 indicated that on average students either agreed or were tending towards no opinion on the statements: “the students of Thuong Tin high school are abusing cell phones” Opinion on overusing mobile phone of Thuong Tin students Number of Percentages respondents Totally agree 18 60 Agree 6 20 No opinion 6 20 13
14. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report More than half of Thuong Tin students (80%) admitted their real situation (overusing the cell phones) without having the sufficient awareness of the bad effects the cell phones. the alarming reality has become the big concerns of the parents, teachers and the society for a new young generation. 5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 5.1. Overview of project results and recommendation Cell phones, although it is considered to be a “miracle” tool in our lives, has brought people lots of troubles, nuisance and distraction. Most of the Thuong Tin high school students are overusing hand phones, becoming the slaves to this technology. These students have used mobile phones as an effective tool of chatting with their friends through messages system or phone calls, playing games all the time: at late night, during the classes, taking inappropriate pictures and then "sexing" them to a boyfriend or girlfriend or so on. However, the Thuong Tin students might not be aware of bad effects caused by their phones. As the result, their learning capacity has dropped much. They have become lazier, dependent on cell phones, and turn themselves into false students, i.e. they aren’t truthful in study and to your parents. Some students become the victims of social evils due to major reason involving the cell phones. The study result and students’ morality has been much influenced, but as important as these, the cell phones create possible harms for the students. They are likely to suffer from cancer, heart diseases, weakened immune system, headaches, long- lasting tiredness or reproductive function, etc. If the situation of abusing cell phones is still continued, the risk of getting the mentioned bad effects is very high. It is recommended that the mobile phones should be used in exceptional circumstances, and the parents should think over before purchasing 14
15. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report their children a cell phone because it is possible that hand phone harms their children in many aspects. 5.2. The limitations of the research During the process of conducting this project, the researcher had some difficulties and limitations: firstly, questionnaire survey couldn’t be delivered to all the Thuong Tin high school students, so the statistic figures obtained from survey haven’t been completely correct yet. Secondly, the researcher could not convey or mention all the ways the students have abused mobile phones as well as couldn’t mention sufficiently all the detailed bad effects of cell phones. Therefore, it is suggested for future studies that there should be the combination of both questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews or observation method to gain the more exact and persuasive results. REFERENCES * Katherine Saw, M. Ed. (2005). Students and cell phones: Controversy in the class room. Opinion and editorial. Associatedcontent, 1. Retrieved May 23, 2010 from ml?cat=9 * Erin Schreiner, B.A. (2009). Effects of Mobile Phones on Students. EHow, 1. Retrieved May 23, 2010 from students.html * Ya Na. (2004). Cell phones bad for teens. Shanghai Stars, 1. Retrieved May 23, 2010 from 15
16. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report * Linda Song. (2009). How Cell Phones Affect in Our Lives. Go articles, 1. Retrieved May 23, 2010 from * Guerrelyne Gautreau. (2009). The impact of cell phones in schools. Ezine articles,1. retrieved from May 27, 2010 from in-Schools&id=1342243 * Lam Qui. (2009). Hoc sinh dung dien thoai di dong- cam hay khong? Dai phat thanh truyen hinh Thai Binh,1. Retrieved from April 12, 2010 from APPENDIXES Appendixes 1: Research questionnaire Survey on the usage of mobile phones of the Thuong Tin high school students Introductory remarks: Hello! I’m Bich Bui, the third year student- Faculty of Foreign Language of Hanoi University of Technology. I’m carrying out a study about the usage of mobile phones of the Thuong Tin high school students. Could you spare a few minutes to answer a few questions? 1. Have you used a mobile phone?  Yes  No 2. You have used mobile phone since:  Grade 10  Grade 11  Grade 12  As pupil of the lower secondary school 3. Last week, how many times did you contact your family by your mobile phone?  7 times (one time/ day)  4- 6 times  3- 5 times 16
17. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report  0-2 times 4. How many messages do you send each day?  Under 20 messages/ day  20-50 messages/ day  50-100 messages/day  More than 100 messages / day 5. When receiving a message or call, the time for you to reply often is:  1-2 minutes  3-5 minutes  5-7 minutes  7-10 minutes  More than 10 minutes 6. How long do you play games on mobile phone each day?  Under 1 hour  1- 2 hours  More than 2 hours 7. How often do you stay up late to send messages to or call your friends?  Sometimes 3-4 times before 24h  Sometimes 3-4 times after 24 h  Often (> 10 times/ month) after 24 h 8. During the time of cell phone usage, have you been disturbed often?  Yes  No  Sometimes 9. Currently, most of the mobile phone networks have the promotion programs for the students. Do you join in this program?  Yes  No 10. Of all the bad effects of mobile phone below, which bad effects have you heard of?  The cell phone radiation waves have influence on the brain, the central nervous system.  The influence on heart and endocrine system  the influence on reproductive function if putting cell phone into pocket  never heard of. 11. Has using mobile phone made your life any changes? If any, what are those changes? 12. what do you think when the students of Thuong Tin high school have been abusing the mobile phones for the recent years? 17
18. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report 13. You are now at the age of:  15  16  17  18  Male  Female All information provided above will be entirely kept confidential. Please write your name and the name of class that you are in: Thank you so much! LIST OF THE TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 4.1 Bad effects of mobile waves on people’s health Table 4.2 The purpose of using mobile phone Table 4.3 The point of views about abusing of Thuong Tin students Table 4.4 Summary of the results from the survey of using mobile phone of Thuong Tin secondary students, Hanoi Questions Number % Sample size 30 A number of students using mobile phone Yes 29 97 No 1 3 To use mobile phone when studying in 18
19. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report Grade 10 21 70 Grade 11 3 10 Grade 12 0 0 Lower secondary school 6 20 Last week, using Mobile phone to contact family 7 times ( one time/ day) 1 3.3 4-6 times 1 3.3 3-5 times 7 23.4 0-2 times 21 70 Each day, using mobile phone for messages Under 20 messages/ day 4 13.3 20-50 messages/ day 4 13.3 50-100 messages/day 7 23.4 More than 100 messages / day 15 50 Time to reply messages or answer the phone 1-2 mins 27 90 3-5 mins 2 6.6 5-7 mins 1 3.3 7-10mins 0 0 More than 10 mins 0 0 Each day, spending time playing games on mobile phone Under 1 hour 15 50 1-2 hours 12 40 More than 2 hours 3 10 How often students stay up late for messages Sometimes 3-4 times before 24h/ month 9 30 Sometimes 3-4 times after 24 h/month 12 40 Often ( > 10 times/ month) after 24 h 9 30 19
20. Bui Thi Bich D06- K52 Research Report To be disturbed Yes 20 66.6 No 0 0 Sometimes 10 33.3 To participate in promotion program network yes 25 83.3 No 5 16.6 To be aware of negative effects of mobile phone waves On the brain and central nervous system 22 73.3 On the heart and endocrine system 2 6.6 On reproductive function 9 30 Not hear of all yet 3 10 The influences of mobile phone on the students’ life No influences 6 20 No opinion 3 10 Trouble, to be disturbed, waste of money and time 14 46.7 Life is more comfortable and interesting 7 23.4 Opinion on overusing mobile phone of Thuong Tin students Totally agree 18 60 Agree 6 20 No opinion 6 20 Age of respondents 16 10 33.3 17 10 33.3 18 10 33.3 Gender of respondents Male 14 46.7 Female 16 53.3 20
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