The purpose of this study was intended to provide basic information on adolescents' mobile phone use which can be used to provide guidance for them both at school and at home. It examined students' phone use and the general status of their family stre...
The purpose of this study was intended to provide basic information on adolescents' mobile phone use which can be used to provide guidance for them both at school and at home. It examined students' phone use and the general status of their family strength, peer conformity, and mobile phone addiction, searching for the difference in their levels of mobile phone addiction based on the socio-demographic variables and mobile phone use variables, and looking into the difference in those levels and the influence of their family variables (family strength), psychological variables (self-esteem and self-control), and school environment variables (peer conformity, school life adaptation) on that addiction.
The subjects were 700 students distributed throughout at middle schools, and academic and vocational high schools in Gwangju who have their own mobile phones. They were asked to answer s questionnaire of self-report type, and 666 among the reports were analyzed. SPSS/PC WIN 14.0 program was used to conduct descriptive statistics, frequencies, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Cronbach's α, Pearson correlation coefficient, t-test, ANOVA, Duncan's new multiple range test, and multiple regression analysis.
The results of this study were as follows.
First of all, the most widely used function of the subjects' mobile phones was text messaging and the majority used text messages more than 41 times a day. Mostly, they were talking to friends of the same gender and the monthly fee ranged from 20,000 to 30,000 won. In general, they called their friends after school. Parental attitudes toward the subjects' mobile phone use showed that most parents did not care about their children's mobile phone use. Mostly, the subjects felt that school mobile phone regulations at school were acceptable.
The general status of the subjects' family strength, peer conformity, and mobile phone addiction were as follows. In terms of their family strength, which included analysis of the strength of family bonds, communication, problem-solving, and value sharing among the family members, represented positive attitudes toward their family because the mean of the strength showed higher than median. Peer conformity, which included analysis of obsession over peer relationships, showed significance because the mean of the strength said higher than the median demonstrating their addiction level were reasonable. In addition, 7.5% of the subjects exhibited addictive tendencies toward their mobile phones. 59.5% of the subjects showed tendencies toward dependency rather than addition, referring to those who could become addictive if peer conformity increases.
Secondly, the subjects' mobile phone addiction rates differed based on socio-demographic variables and mobile phone use variables differed significantly according to school levels, sex, and grades. High schoolers used their mobile phones more than middle schoolers, females more than males, and lower grades more than intermediate and high grades.
The degree of the subjects' mobile phone additions differed significantly according to the phone function they usually use, daily use frequency, who they spoke to, the monthly fee, the time of day it is used, parental attitudes, and school regulation of their use. Several subject groups, for example, those sending many text messages, those using the phone more than 41 times a day, those mainly talking to the opposite sex friends, and those paying 50,000 to 60,000 won monthly fees exhibited highly addictive tendencies toward their mobile phone. In addition, the groups were showed their high addiction to the mobile phone use if their parents overlooked their mobile phone use even though their parents hated their phone use or if they felt that school regulation was too strong.
Thirdly, when their family variables (family strength), psychological variables (self-esteem and self-control), and school environment variables (peer conformity and school life adaptation) are examined, the degree of mobile differed significantly. The groups of low family strength and low self-control had an addictive tendency to mobile phone use. Moreover, those with high rate of peer conformity and low rates of school life adaptation seemed to be highly addictive.
Finally, the variables influencing the students' mobile phone addictions most significantly were peer conformity(β=.23), school life adaptation(β=-.19), school levels(β=.18), gender(β=.17), and self-control(β=-.14) in this order. The higher the rates of peer conformity, the lower the degree of school life adaptation; the lower their self-control, the higher addictive to their mobile phone use. High schoolers and female students seemed to have a tendency to be more addictive than middle schoolers and male students.
In conclusion, the results showed that some adolescence's addiction to their mobile phone use should be of concern and the status of their family strength and levels of peer conformity were the most important variables. As adolescence is considered to be a critical and fundamental growth and development period for students to be grown up as a suitable member of a society, the unregulated use of their mobile phones could not only have a negative impact on the formation of their sound economic sense, their school achievement, and adaptation in their school life but also build up negative peer conformity and influence deviation from accepted social norms. Therefore, parents' concerns towards and guidance of their children's mobile phone use is needed and should be pursued through communication with family members and sharing of values. Moreover, adolescents should be given guidance in their mobile phone use provided by education and regulation at school.