NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF THE USE OF ANDROID PHONES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SIERRA LEONE (A CASE STUDY OF GOVERNMENT TECHNICAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS)

NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF THE USE OF ANDROID PHONES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SIERRA LEONE (A CASE STUDY OF GOVERNMENT TECHNICAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS)

​​​​​​​BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In our contemporary environment, advances in technology cause individuals all over the world to alter both their patterns of behavior and the ways in which they consume goods. As opined by Mahamud &  Fordjour (2015)) the use of information and communication technology, abbreviated as ICT, has affected  both the learning process and the methodology of acquiring new information in light of the present day education system. This is evident as on a global scale as   Fawareh and Jusoh,(2017 observed that  people all over the world have accepted this innovative and fascinating technology such as smart  phones as one of the most crucial required facilities in their everyday lives. 

Etymologically, smart phones are a technical invention that have gradually become a part of everyone's life and with this scramble for individual ownership, mobile phones companies around the globe has ventured in production of different class of android phone (Thomas & Leonid et’al 2015). It android version  are equipped with multimedia phone features, such as camera functions, sound recording functions, video functions, and many other functions. As a result of these developments, Han,  & Yi, (2019) asserts that an android phone is designed as  a piece of hardware that functions in a manner analogous to that of an operating system for a computer and possesses both computational and networking capabilities. According to Hossain (2019), these were first made available to the public in the year 2000, and ever since then, they have become among of the most well-known and sought-after electronic devices. Due to the fact that it is a compact and intelligent gadget that can easily be carried in one's pocket, android phones have effectively taken the role of desktop computers in a variety of activities. According to Hossain (2019), it has developed into an essential component of today's generation in each and every facet of life, particularly for students and younger people, who make up the majority of android phone users and buyers. According to the hypothesis put up by Fawareh and Jusoh (2017), having android phone is analogous to carrying around a portable, little computer. It should come as no surprise that the capabilities of a android phone extend much beyond those of just making and receiving phone calls. In most cases, there are outstanding functions such as those for accessing the internet, monitoring one's health condition, sending and receiving emails, viewing movies, listening to music, talking, and exchanging images, videos, and other documents, to name just a few examples what theses android phone version can do for people all over the world.

Importantly, the proliferation of android phones and other associated technologies has significantly altered the methods of education  as well as it utilized in other developed nations of which developing nations like Siere Lonne  is not an exception to this rule. Serdang Darul  & Mothar (2019) posits that because android phones are now more readily available and accessible, secondary school students  which make up a growing percentage of the population possesses and uses these devices. Studies by Abbas in  2020 showed that almost 63 percent of high school students in North America owned android phones, and more than half of those students admitted that they use their android phones to access the internet via Wi-Fi and cellular data to access social networking sites and emails to access their mails and academic articles. More so, a very tiny percentage of students in the United States, but one that is steadily increasing, has shown that student use their android phones for online banking, online shopping, and entertainment purposes According to Vassilakaki, E., Moniarou-Papaconstantinou,  & Garoufallou, (2016), students can, for example, access the materials for their lectures on their cellphones; easily access information online to fulfill their information needs via learning management systems; access academic databases and a website; and so on. These are just a few examples. Furthermore, Kibona & Mgaya (2015) assert that the widespread availability of these facilities has resulted in a shift in the method of education, such that students and other learners no longer rely solely on paper-based materials but rather on the capabilities of android phones, which enable students to more effectively drive their learning process and realize their goals. This was made clear in the works of Masiu and Chukwuere (2018), in which they stated that  android phone has also made the lives of students easier, as they can access their school information on the gadget through electronic learning (e-learning), and mobile learning. Howbeit these gadgets also govern their lives by presenting them with vital information and data wherever they are and at any time is another worrying aspect of this situation. Ahsan,, Nasir  & Abbas (2020) averred that android phoned applications, electronic books and journals, search engines, and social media websites provide  student with the means to access and retrieve the  informative content. Thus student can utilizes these devices to easily access the internet in order to participate in a variety of online learning processes  as established by AlEmran, , Elsherif, & Shaalan, (2016).

However, despite the relative benefits of android phone usage by students, Barnwell (2016) is of the view that most students use their phones to engage in activities that appear to be extremely distracting most of the time. This makes it difficult to strike a balance on android phone as a tool for boosting academic performance  which is why there is a need to study the underlying negative impact of these uses of android phones on the academic performance of secondary school students with reference to government technical school in Siere Lonne.

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