The effect of mobile phone attachment on an attention task among secondary school and college students

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between mobile phone dependency and attention in a sample of 60 secondary school and college students (M=26, F=34). For students mobile phones are an integral part of their lives. Lecturers and teachers may have a different view, particularly when a student is attending to their phone during class time. Participants were primed to think about their mobile phone using a mobile phone involvement questionnaire (MPIQ) and selective attention was also measured using a dichotic listening task. Statistical analyses demonstrated that there was no positive correlation between mobile phone dependency and attention. However, interesting findings reveal that college students are more involved with their mobile phone than secondary school students and that mobile phone dependency is high in the female population. Therefore, it was concluded that investigating a link between mobile phone dependency and attention would provide an interesting area of research.