ABSTRACT
The general objective of this pilot study was to determine the extent of use and the influences of the smartphone among primary school children and the perception of its effect on their behavior and lifestyle. This study also specifically focused on the social behavior, academic performance, and health of these children with respect to smartphone use in their daily life. Smartphone addiction, its association with smartphone use, and its predictors had not yet been studied among primary school children in Muar, Johor, Malaysia. This was a cross-sectional study carried out using a convenient sampling method in three primary schools selected in Muar District. Each school was chosen from a multiracial mix of Malay, Chinese, and Tamil primary schools. The tool used was a questionnaire composed of 30 different questions distributed to 216 respondents. The questionnaire comprised questions that investigated the demographics, social behavior, academic performance, and health of the subjects (Kwon et al. 2013). We also took the opportunity of this pilot study to validate our questionnaires. More than half of the 216 schoolchildren who participated in the surveys, or more than 51% (110) of the schoolchildren between the ages of 10 and 12 years old, owned a smartphone. They admitted to not just owning but also actively using a smartphone on a daily basis (57.4% of the males and 44.4% of the females). Chinese students had the highest rate of smartphone ownership of 48/110 or 49%, compared to Malays (40%) and Indians (21%). Smartphone use was more rampant among lower-income students (34%) compared to students from higher-income families (28%). The majority admitted to using smartphones for entertainment purposes (57%) and social media (20%) while only a small proportion of the active users used their smartphones for educational purposes (13%). A portion of the schoolchildren (106) did not own a smartphone but admitted being active users, using parents’ or siblings’ smartphones on a regular basis, spending 1–5 hours a day on smartphones, with 7 of them (6.6%) reporting use of more than 5 hours per day. From a social behavior aspect, 107 or 49.5% of students considered themselves heavy users addicted to spending a lot of time (more than 5 hours per day) using a smartphone. One hundred seven students or 49.5% had been cautioned by family members and friends for spending too much time on smartphones, and 71 or 33% of them reported experiencing emotional changes such as growing moody, nervous, or depressed while away from a smartphone. From an academic performance aspect, more than half of the respondents (114) supported the use of a smartphone in school projects, although a higher number of them (59.7%) thought it can also be a source of distraction and can cause decline in academic results. From a health aspect, 123 students experienced neck pain after using smartphones for a long time; 44% thought that smartphone use can cause wrist pain leading to carpal tunnel syndrome. Less than half of the respondents (58) agreed that smartphone use causes obesity. Use of smartphones was high among primary school children of all races and economic strata. It has benefits in terms of communication and providing tools to acquire knowledge, but it can also lead to social misbehavior and academic performance disturbances. However, the students had a moderate perception on smartphones from the aspect of health; maybe they were too young and not well informed of the dangers yet. Further study needs to be done using better sampling and methodology involving a bigger number of students from a larger overage area or maybe from several states in order to ascertain the true effects of smartphone use among primary school children in Malaysia. Some form of cybersecurity can also be imposed to improve safety, and time restrictions on smartphone use can be implemented. Digital knowledge platforms and their use is very desirable to be taught as a topic in schools to promote responsible use of smartphones among schoolchildren.
