Problem of Technology Addiction

The following sample essay on “Problem of Technology Addiction”: describing and discussing issue of technology addiction of today youth.

Introduction

A. Background of the Problem

Today, students are very familiar with smartphones, no exception students at the Faculty of Literature, especially 2017 class students, English Literature Department. every student use smartphone. Most of these students use smartphones as their communication tool. In fact, some students use more than one cell phone. Students tend to use smartphones for many reasons, such as just wanting to follow trends, or to become more active on social media ( Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerry Messenger, etc.

). By using a smartphone, students can be active on social media easily because smartphones have many features that facilitate their users to connect to the internet more easily anytime and anywhere.

Gender as part of identity experiences a continuous shift with the influence of the factors faced. Among them are family, school and media. The gender differences described above in relation to learning English are part of what researchers want to investigate their relationship with the role of smartphones in learning English.

Given that smartphones have also become a phenomenon nowadays and most students use smartphones. So this study wants to investigate the role of smartphone use in learning English in English Education Department students seen from persfective gender.

Based on the background of the problems described above, the formulation of the problem in the following research:

1. What is the role of smartphones in learning English in English education students?
2. What is the influence of gender on the use of smartphones in learning English in English education students?
3. What is the influence of the duration of smartphone ownership in learning English in English education students?

Smartphones are phones that have capabilities such as computers, usually have large screens and the operating system is capable of running common applications (Dictionary Oxford Online, 2013).

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Backer (2010), states that a smartphone is a telephone that unites the capabilities of leading edge; this is a form of capability of the Wireless Mobile Device (WMD) that can function like a computer by offering features such as personal digital assistant (PDA), internet access, e-mail, and the Global Positioning System (GPS). Smartphones also have other functions such as cameras, videos, MP3 players, just like regular phones. In other words, smartphones can be categorized as mini-computers that have many functions and users can use them whenever and wherever. Smartphones are no longer used as communication tools but are also a social and work requirement. In developing and temperate countries growing, many people have used cell phones in the learning process. Many studies have been carried out by a number of researchers to identify the use of technology among students, including the use of smartphones.

Nielsen (2012) “report smartphone users in 39 countries in the world and 13 of them are countries in Asia, including Indonesia. In our country, the use of smartphones is very popular and familiar”. Smartphones certainly have positive and negative effects. When something has an effect on someone it can be said to be an impact. Today, it can be seen that usage smartphones have affected people’s lives, including students. A smartphone is one tool that provides many applications that students can develop their knowledge about, including their ability to speak English, if they maximize the function of the features and applications in the smartphone. Some applications facilitate students to learn English, such as dictionaries, English idioms, English grammar, etc. Not only the application, but smartphone features can also help students in their learning process, for example wi-fi can help them make assignments, MP3 players can help them improve their listening skills and so on.

Talking about the influence of smartphones, there must be positive influences and negative influences. The influence of smartphones that is very prominent in the influence on children, namely among student of elementary school students (SD), junior high school (SMP) senior high school (SMA) and college students (universities). Here is the influence of smarthphone for students. The influence of smartphones for students who are positive, or can be called usability and utilization includes as follows:

1. Smartphones equipped with an operating system that can connect to the internet make it easier for students to access the internet to find some information or subject matter that they want to or are facing.
2. With a smartphone that provides e-mail applications, it is easier for students to send e-mail without having to search for internet cafes (warnet).
3. Students can search information globally and even communicate without having meet face to face with the person.
4. Smartphones increase students’ insight in everything.

In addition to these benefits, there are still many others that might be considered trivial but also useful. Negative influences can also be referred as negative impacts, including the following:

1. Smartphones can interfere students concentration in learning. For example, there are messages from social networks, and so on when learning process.

Learning a language encourages students to focus on research and planning a language rather than communicating with a language (Escamilla et al 2000). So, when students learn through their smartphones, their learning system will be activated.

In this study, researchers sought the impact of smartphone use according to students’ perceptions based on Barker’s (2005) theory. Perception refers to a process of receiving decoding spoken, written or signed input (Crystal, 2008). Wesely (2012) claim student perceptions are generally related to two targets: their own perceptions, and perceptions of learning situations.

From the explanation above, it can be seen that this research is part of second language acquisition. Smartphone users in learning English can be categorized as a new system of learning. Language acquisition is part of human learning in general, fully learning with personality, closely intertwined with second language learning, discussing problems, discussing new linguistic systems, and discourse learning and communicative functions of language (Brown, 1993).

Therefore, smartphones have become a phenomenon nowadays and most students use smartphones, researchers find out the impact of smartphone use on students in learning English according to their perceptions.

B. purpose of the research

The purpose of this study is to identify, explain and analyze the impact of smartphone use in learning English according to student perceptions based on the theory of Barker et al (2005).

C. benefit of resesarch

There are two benefits of this research, theoretically in practical terms:

1. Theoretically the benefits of this study are to contribute to second language acquisition, using smartphones in language learning can be considered as a learning strategy for students to gain knowledge.
2. Practically, the results of this study are expected to be useful for students to be aware of the positive and negative effects of smartphones, so they can develop their abilities in English and they can also avoid the negative effects.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Some students use more than one cell phone. Students tend to use smartphones for many reasons, such as just wanting to follow trends, or to become more active on social media ( Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerry Messenger, etc.).

“Students” Readiness and Perceptions Towards Using Mobile Technologies for Learning The English Language Literature Components “by Rasyidah et al. (2011).

The Impact of Mobile Access on Motivation: Distance Education Student Perceptions by Linas Mockus et al (2011).

DISCUSSION

Impact of Portability According to Student Perception:

• “I bring my smartphone wherever and whenever I go.”

From the statement above the researchers found that almost all participants stated that they always brought their smartphones wherever and whenever. Participants who said never 0% (0 participants), rarely 0% (0 participants), sometimes 0% (0 participants), often 8% (2 participants) and always amounted to 92% (23 participants). This shows that researchers can conduct research because almost all of the smartphone users use it whenever and wherever they are.

• “I use my smartphone to study.”

From this statement the researcher found 0% (0 participants) who answered never, 0% (0 participants) rarely, 44% (11 participants) who answered occasionally, 44% (11 participants) often and 12% (3 participants) . From this it can be seen that most smartphone users among students of the 2011 Unsrat Faculty of Literature use their smartphones to study.

• “With a smartphone I can learn and practice English whenever and wherever.”

From this statement 0% (0 participants) answered strongly disagree, 4% (1 participant) answered disagree, 11% (3 participants) answered neutral, 50% (13 participants) answered agreed, 11% (9 participants) who answer strongly agree. From the statements of the participants it can be seen that most participants agreed that by using a smartphone they could learn and practice English whenever and wherever.

•  “I use applications such as dictionaries, Thesauruses, English Tenses, etc. to study with my smartphone.”

Theoretical framework

Barker et al. (2005) stated that the impact of cell phone technology for learning is portability, collaboration and motivation.

• Portability

Portability of cellular phones allows students to learn practically anytime and anywhere in obtaining or taking information courses through their cellphones because they are brought from class to class or anywhere.

• Collaboration

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter that are accessed on student cellphones allow students to form groups to distribute and add their knowledge together, and share information easily, and this can lead to more successful collaborative learning.

• Motivation

When a cellphone is used, it is included in a large class. It seems that students are more involved in the learning process. The use of cell phones in learning increases students’ willingness to learn. They took the initiative in using the device as a learning tool.

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This is descriptive research, which aims to investigate smartphone use by students of English education majors. This study has a mixed method design in terms of data collection. The main data sources consisted of quantitative questionnaires and brief qualitative semi-structured interviews, conducted with 62 students. Which consists of 22 men and 40 women. The study was explained by the dominant quantitative model supported by follow-up interviews. To obtain data in accordance with the objectives of the study using the data collection techniques as follows:

• Questionnaire Method (Questionnaire)

Questionnaire is a number of written questions used for obtain information from the respondent in the sense of reports about his person or things he knows.

• Interview

Interviews were conducted with question and answer directly to the research subject. Interviews in this study were conducted to find out more deeply about the role of smartphones in learning English in terms of gender perspective. By interviewing it is expected to be able to know in detail what students are doing with smartphones during the learning process and student responses to smartphones and their relation to gender.

To analyze the data that has been collected, the first is to describe the results of the questionnaire regarding the role of smartphones with simple descriptive qualitative. Then a non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test was performed to analyze data relating to gender, while the Kruskal test

Wallis-H is used to analyze data relating to the length of student ownership of a smartphone. For data originating from interviews, qualitative data in the form of recordings are made by the researcher script, after which the answers are categorized and interpreted. In interviews the researchers asked questions about the most important role of smartphone usage and predictions regarding the future status of the smartphone.

D. Research method

In this study researchers used qualitative methods to analyze data. The researcher used a questionnaire as a research instrument and conducted an interview (open question). In this study the researcher took the social situation from 2011 students in the Department of English Literature. The researcher took 25 people as samples in this study.