Smart-phone can harm your 'learning process'

A recent study on the first-time smart-phone users revealed that people feel smart-phones are actually detrimental to their ability to learn.

Conducted by the Rice University, the research paper 'You Can Lead a Horse to Water But You Cannot Make Him Learn: Smartphone Use in Higher Education' reveals the self-rated impact of smart-phones among the users.

Assistant professor Philip Kortum said that smart-phone technology has been penetrating world markets, becoming abundant in most college settings, and they were interested to see how students with no prior experience using smart-phones thought they impacted their education.

The research revealed that while users initially believed the mobile devices would improve their ability to perform well with homework and ultimately get better grades, the opposite was reported at the end of the study.

The longitudinal study from 2010 to 2011 focused on 24 first-time smart-phone users at a major research university in Texas.

Kortum noted that the study did not address the structured use of smart-phones in an educational setting.

He said that the study's findings have important implications for the use of technology in education.

Kortum added that their research demonstrates that simply providing access to a smart-phone, without specific directed learning activities, may actually be detrimental to the overall learning process.

The research is published in the British Journal of Educational Technology.