Smartphone Use in School and Academic Performance
Post by Shireen Parimoo
What's the science?
Ever since smartphones gained popularity and became a seemingly indispensable part of our lives, they have been linked to a number of negative outcomes including low grades, poor sleep, reduced social engagement, and even depression. How much of this is supported by research? Does smartphone use really have a negative impact on students’ grades? This week in Psychological Science, Bjerre-Nielsen and colleagues report results from a 2-year observational study that investigated the relationship between smartphone use among young adults and their academic performance.
How did they do it?
Participants were 470 students (19-29 years old) who were part of the Copenhagen Networks Study in Denmark. The students agreed to have their smartphone usage tracked over the course of two years, which included tracking their GPS location, social interactions, and the on/off status of the smartphone screen. The authors combined the frequency of smartphone use and class attendance to obtain measures of in-class and out-of-class smartphone usage. They also obtained student-specific characteristics such as the participants’ age, sex, personality traits (e.g., Big Five Inventory), and grade-point averages (GPA) for each course.
The authors first assessed the correlation between in-class and out-of-class smartphone use and GPA. They then specified two types of statistical models to assess the effect of smartphone use on academic performance, each of which had its own set of advantages. Panel models included data for every student’s grades and smartphone use in each of their courses, which allowed the authors to examine the effect of both student characteristics (e.g., age) and course characteristics (e.g., difficulty) on academic performance. Conversely, a cross-sectional model included data for each student’s overall grade and smartphone use and allowed them to compare their results to previously published research on the topic.
What did they find?
Greater smartphone use was related to poorer academic performance, and this relationship was stronger for in-class smartphone use. Smartphone use was also negatively correlated with students’ high-school GPA. Thus, students who used their smartphone more frequently in class had a lower GPA in both high school and university. The cross-sectional model largely replicated previous findings on this topic, namely, that greater smartphone use during class is associated with lower grades. However, results from the panel model indicate that the relationship between smartphone use and academic performance is not as strong as previously thought. Specifically, when student and course-specific characteristics like personality traits and class difficulty are accounted for in the model, the association between smartphone use and GPA is not reliable.
What's the impact?
Smartphone use may not have as detrimental an impact on students’ academic performance as previously thought. Moreover, the study highlights the importance of considering individual- and context-specific characteristics in performing this type of research, which can have an impact on the magnitude of the observed effects. Overall, these findings provide some reassurance as smartphones are becoming increasingly pervasive and students are exposed to them at younger ages than before.
Bjerre-Nielsen et al. The negative effect of smartphone use on academic performance may be overestimated: Evidence from a 2-year panel study. Psychological Science (2020). Access the original scientific publication here.