Running head: DO SMARTPHONES HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT IN OUR LIVES

Do Smartphones Have a Positive Impact in our lives

Allen Liao
LDS Business College

DO SMARTPHONES HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT IN OUR LIVES

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No matter what we do, whether we are walking on the sidewalk, waiting for a bus, or
crossing through the street, we see people with their eyes glued to their five-inch screens in their
hands. In our day, smartphones are everywhere, and they have captured the attention of people,
especially the younger generations (Tan, 2013). With the convenience of smartphones and their
applications, we use them to deal with everything that we need to accomplish (Autumn, 2012).
Many of us spend more time on our smartphones than anything else. The article The
relationship between life stress and smartphone addiction on taiwanese
university student: A meditation model of learning self-Efficacy and social
self-Efficacy by Shou-I Chiu argues that smartphone addiction influences
many different perspectives of our lives with strong points and a fallacy;
several other articles on the topic support this authors position, while some
disagree.
First, Chiu started his illustration by revealing how the smartphone addiction is actually
closely related to the stress in social life. From his perspective, people who have an addiction to
their smartphones are usually those with a low self-efficacy as well, which in turn, creates stress
for the individual. The reason is because people usually build up their self-confidence and selfconsciousness through their experiences interacting with others in reality. The ability to easily
talk to others on their smartphones is actually isolating them from opportunities to learn and to
develop their self-efficacy. On the other hand, Chiu also pointed out that the people who have no
addiction to their smartphones are better working face to face with others and have a
DO SMARTPHONES HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT IN OUR LIVES
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higher self-efficacy (2014).
Instead of only receiving messages from the screen, they are facing real people. They can
perceive different emotions from peoples reactions during the conversation, and they have to
learn to handle different situations when challenges come their way. These valuable experiences
and communication skills cannot be learned from texting on smartphones. Therefore, smartphone
addiction might lead to less successful experiences compared to the others who have no such
addiction. When we put a persons social life in perspective, it becomes easy to tell how much
stress and pressure smartphone addiction generates for those who suffer from the addiction
(Chiu, 2014).
Another article titled Learn to switch off-Why not give your smartphone a holiday by
Clarissa Tan, supports Chius point. She points out the connection between social stress and

smartphone addiction. In her writing, she emphasized how young people are stuck to their
smartphones and how smartphones become their primary source for social media. Smartphones
allow them to have access to the Internet in any place and any time. Therefore, people rely on
their phones so much that they even feel stressed if they do not check their smartphones all the
time. They are afraid of missing text messages, and they are anxious when their friends do not
reply to their comments right away. They believe that the most enticing benefit of their
smartphones is using the applications (for example, Facebook), which connect them to their
friends all the time, and they are able to keep track of more people this way. In fact, they have
DO SMARTPHONES HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT IN OUR LIVES
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obligation to their smartphones; once they are addicted to their phones, it will be a burden for
them if their smartphones are taken away from them (2013). From this point of view we can also
see how smartphone addiction causes social stress for the people who are addicted to them. It
supports Chius statement very well about how smartphone addictions can lead to social stress in
our lives.
Secondly, Chius research also mentioned how smartphone addiction has a negative impact
on the academic performance of students. He made a comment that the students who have an
addiction to their smartphones are not performing as well as the others who have no addiction
(2014). Indeed, some students have spent huge amounts of time on their smartphones playing
games or watching movies instead of focusing on their academics. We can also see in the
classrooms that many students are distracted by their smartphones and ignore their professors
who are sharing valuable knowledge and experiences with them. In addition, because of the
convenience of the smartphones, students are not working as hard as they used to be. They can
simply Google the answer on their smartphones instead of researching or studying by
themselves (Chiu, 2014).
Contrary to what Chiu believes, there is an article Prediction of User Acceptance and
Adoption of Smart Phone for Learning with Technology Acceptance Model written by YongWee Sek and his team. They conducted a survey by giving smartphones to sixty volunteers who
had never owned a smartphone before. They were given and then asked to incorporate
DO SMARTPHONES HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT IN OUR LIVES
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in academic study. During this process they explored and documented the change in attitude
these volunteers had towards smartphones. They based their conclusions on the functionality and
usefulness smartphones offered their users. In the end, those who participated commented that

their attitudes changed and they felt more positively towards the use of smartphones.
Students are actually more motivated to learn since they now have different options when it
comes to receiving knowledge other than through the conventional classroom. Smartphones have
broken the limits set by textbooks, classrooms, and schools. Through smartphones, students are
able to gain knowledge in whatever they are interested in, and they can learn at their own pace as
well. They can spend an entire day on their smartphones digging out valuable information from
the internet (Sek, Lau, Teoh, Law, & Parumo, 2010).
On one hand, Chiu believes that smartphones have a negative effect on students. On the
other hand, we can learn from Yong-Wee Seks teams study that smartphones can be beneficial
to learning. We can compare the people who are addicted to their smartphones only because of
their desire to continually learn new things and those who have no addiction yet have zero desire
to learn regardless of the source. In the end we can only conclude that the addiction of the
smartphones can be either a positive or a negative influence, and academic performance depends
on the motivation of each individual (2010).
Chius last point expanded his perspective of the relationship between smartphone addiction
DO SMARTPHONES HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT IN OUR LIVES
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and self-efficacy. He profoundly emphasized the effect of self-efficacy in the article. Thus,
efficacy beliefs allow students to readily participate in learning activities, acquire more active
learning habits, work harder, exhibit greater persistence when encountering difficulties, appear
less anxious, accept challenging tasks, spend more time pursuing goals, undergo extensive
cognitive processing and engagement, employ self-regulatory strategies, and set additional
mastery goals. With this comment, he explained not only how self-efficacy helps the people but
also the potential that people can reach with self-efficacy. On the other hand, he related others
who have the smartphone addition to lower self-efficacy and less successful achievements in life
(2014)
With regard to Chius perspective about smartphones leading to less success in life, Clarissa
Tan has a completely different view. She argued that the progress of technology has created a
new era for us. We are able to achieve many great things and work with others through the
Internet, and the invention of the smartphone is a witness of that progress. The ability to talk to
every individual in the world using the smartphones is actually a great step to enlarge our vision
to see different cultures and features of the Gods creations (Tan, 2013). This is on the opposite
position of Chiu who claimed that the smartphone addiction leads to the less success (2014).
From Tans statement above, we can easily see that there is a slippery slope fallacy in Chius

opinion. Smartphone addiction does not always immediately lower self-efficacy and
less success in life, because there are many elements that are behind smartphone

lead to

DO

SMARTPHONES HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT IN OUR LIVES

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addiction. There is another study that confirms this. In the article Why smartphone advertising
attracts customers: A model of Web advertising, flow, and personalization Kim and Han imply
that there are people who have spent great amounts of time on their smartphones for opening
different possibilities for the business. Since smartphone, advertising through the smartphones
has become one of the most effective ways to reach the customers. In their perspective, the
smartphone addiction is actually a rock-hard stage to enhance commercial transactions (Kim &
Han, 2014). This is leading to many different perspectives of our commercial developments
toward the success. Finally, Chius point about smartphone addiction and less successful
experiences is less credible, because of other two articles opposite statements.
Finally, some of Chius points that he feels strongly about smartphone addiction are valid,
while others are invalid. From different authors writings, we can actually see there are some
varied views and opinions that Chiu does not include in his article. Chiu has illustrated his points
very well, but he has to place wider considerations and deeper thoughts in his writing. From his
writing, we can see what are the influences of smartphone addiction. But when he explains his
opinions, he does not dig much about the deeper reason behind the addiction. Therefore, his
article will not be as solid as it could be when other authors argue the opposite points with clear
explanations.

DO SMARTPHONES HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT IN OUR LIVES

References
Autumn, A.A. (2012). Theres an app for that. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. 29(14), 1415. Retrieved from http://search.lib.byu.edu/ldsbc/id:ericEJ988561
Chiu, S.I. (2014). The relationship between life stress and smartphone addiction on taiwanese
university student: A mediation model of learning self-Efficacy and social self-Efficacy.
Computers in Human Behavior. 34. 49-57. Retrieved from
http://search.lib.byu.edu/ldsbc/id:sciversesciencedirect_elsevierS0747-5632(14)00029-6
Kim, Y.J. & Han, J.Y. (2014). Why smartphone advertising attracts customers: A model of web
advertising, flow, and personalization. Computers in Human Behavior. 33, 256-269.
Retrieved from http://search.lib.byu.edu/ldsbc/id:sciversesciencedirect_elsevierS07475632(14)00020-X
Tan, C. (2013). Learn to switch off: Why not give your smartphone a holiday? Spectator.
322(9650), 14. Retrieved from http://search.lib.byu.edu/ldsbc/id:gale_litrc339203638
Sek, Y.W., Lau, S.H., Teoh, K.K., Law, C.Y. & Parumo, S.B. (2010). Prediction of user
acceptance and adoption of smartphone for learning with technology acceptance model.
Journal of Applied Sciences. 10(20), 2395. Retrieved from
http://search.lib.byu.edu/ldsbc/id:doajc128da1a48e18596d036b954f4f74b51