Women college students spend 10 hours a day on their cellphones and male students spend eight, and their dependence on their mobile devices poses a risk of addiction and lower academic performance, according to a Baylor University study recently published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions.
Respondents reported spending the most time texting (an average of 94.6 minutes a day) followed by emails (48.5 minutes), checking Facebook (38.6 minutes), surfing the web (34.4 minutes) and listening to music (26.9 minutes).
Women were more inclined to use their mobiles for social networking and relationship building, but men also used sites such as Instagram and Twitter, often to catch up on news, follow sports figures or “waste time,” in the words of one male respondent.
Excessive cellphone use can cause conflict both in and out of the classroom and with professors, employers and families, said researchers.
In addition to providing a way to cheat in class and sucking up study time, “some people use a cellphone to dodge an awkward situation. They may pretend to take a call, send a text or check their phones,” said James Roberts, the Ben H. Williams professor of marketing at Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business and lead author of the study.
