Journal of Arts & Humanities

Volume 07, Issue 12, 2018: 27-32

Article Received: 31-10-2018
Accepted: 13-11-2018
Available Online: 13-12-2018
ISSN: 2167-9045 (Print), 2167-9053 (Online)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18533/journal.v7i12.1524

Analysis of Phubbing Phenomenon among College Students

and Its Recommendations

Shuo Cao1, Ying Jiang2, Ying Liu3

ABSTRACT

Mobile phones have laid a significant effect on college students with the development of science and
technology. As previously reported, the number of phubbing quantity grew dramatically year on year.
It has caused various problems such as damaging college students’ physical and mental health and
ruining their social communication skills and interpersonal relationships. This study attempts to
identify the influence of mobile phones and reveal the reasons why it happens. This report, which
adopts a web-based questionnaire for the authenticity and validity of the results, reached the results
that smart phones have exerted great influence on students’ lives with diverse powerful functions
and fast updating speed; most of students think that phubbing phenomenon will become more and
more popular.

Keywords: College Students, Mobile Phone Used Situation, Phubbing.

This is an open access article under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

1. Introduction
Mobile phones are very popular with the rapid development of social economy and they do
provide plenty of convenience and change people’s life significantly. However, to some extent, it is a
double- edged sword. Just as Chunping Chen (2005) mentioned, “Like everything, Internet culture is a
beautiful and evil double-edged sword”. On one hand, users enjoy the benefits it brings. On the other
hand, it also causes some problems such as social communicating and physical health problems. And
phubbing phenomenon is especially an epidemic among university students, “college students are the
main body of the phubbing group” (Yu, Meng, 2015). Accordingly, this research mainly focuses on the
reason of phubbing and the exact influence of mobile phones.

1.1 The reason of phubbing

According to the study of Varoth Chotpitayasunondh and Karen DouglasM (2016), smartphones

1 Associate professor of Dalian University of Technology.

2 Dalian University of Technology
3 Dalian University of Technology
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allow people to connect with others from almost anywhere at any time. However, there is growing
concern that smartphones may actually sometimes detract, rather than complement, social interactions.
They examined the contributing roles of Internet addiction, fear of missing out, self-control, and
smartphone addiction, and how the frequency of phubbing behavior and of being phubbed may both
lead to the perception that phubbing is normative. The results revealed that Internet addiction, fear of
missing out, and self-control predicted smartphone addiction, which in turn predicted the extent to
which people phub.

1.2 The influence of mobile phones

The research by Chotpitayasunondh and Douglas (2018) experimentally investigated the social
consequences of “phubbing”. Participants viewed a three-minute animation in which they imagined
themselves as part of a dyadic conversation. Their communication partner either phubbed them
extensively, partially, or not at all. Their results revealed that increased phubbing significantly and
negatively affected perceived communication quality and relationship satisfaction. These effects were
mediated by reduced feelings of belongingness and both positive and negative affect. Their research
underlines the importance of phubbing as a modern social phenomenon to be further investigated.

1.3 Aims and expectations

All in all, this research is aimed at analyzing the influence of mobile phones on students and is
expected to make a contribution to solving the problems caused by mobile phones. In order to collect
effective data, this research adopted a web-based investigation system to encourage the informants to
take part and finally 91 pieces of questionnaire were collected back.

2. Methods

2.1 Designing process of the questionnaire

2.1.1 Choose the topic
After group discussion, we finally chose the status of mobile phone use of college students as
our research topic. Based on our observation, we find that most of students would kill their time with
mobile phones by listening to music, watching movies, or communicating with friends through social
software. Some of them even cannot resist the temptation of mobile phones in class. Therefore, a rule
came out, banning students using mobile phones in class. We think that this topic is closely connected to
our daily life and it can reflect some problems of mobile phone using among college students. Some
solutions can be provided after discussion.

2.1.2 Design the questions

Referring to previous research from Lin, T.T.C., Chiang, Y.-H. (2017) and Yu Wang., Qingfeng Meng.
(2015), which are closely related to mobile phones used situation, we came up seventeen questions, three
of which are concerned with basic information of the informants, ten are aimed at investigating the
reason and effect of phubbing, another three are designed to know the students’ attitude toward
phubbing and the last one is an objective question for suggestions. Generally speaking, the questions are
reasonable and were raised from different aspects, directly or indirectly. The questionnaire was uploaded
on Wenjunaxing (https://www.wjx.cn/?source=360&plan=%E9%97%AE%E5%8D%B7%E6%98%9F&keyword
=%E9%97%AE%E5%8D%B7%E6%98%9F) openly and finally we collected ninety-one pieces of results.
Questions are as following:
1. What is your gender？
2. What is your grade？
3. What specialty do you major in?
4. Do you think mobile phones have a great influence on your life?
5. In most situations, which means do you prefer to communicate with others？
6. In which situation do you prefer to use mobile phone most?
7. What is the main purpose of using mobile phone?
8. How much time do you spend on mobile phone everyday on average?

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9. Would you play your mobile phone in classes?

10. Do you have to carry mobile phones out even for a short time (within half an hour)?
11. If you forget your mobile phone, what will your day be like?
12. Which of the following choice is accordance to your mobile phone use situation?
13. Do you think your mobile phone use situation is reasonable?
14. Have you ever heard about phubbing? (It refers to those who always stare at their phones)
15. What is your attitude toward phubbing?
16. What do you think is the tendency of phubbing?
17. Do you have any suggestions for university students to use mobile phones?

2.2 Object of the research

The research is aimed at investigating the use of phones among university students. Therefore,
the object of the research is limited to university students. And in order to enhance the persuasiveness,
university students from different grades, majors and genders are included as the table showed below.
Therefore，the object of the research has reached the demand of universality and pertinence.

Table 1: Response to question 1

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Male 23 25.27%
B. Female 68 74.73%

Table 2: Response to question 2

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Grade One 14 15.38%
B. Grade Two 39 42.86%
C. Grade Three 23 25.27%
D. Grade Four 12 13.19%
E. Grade Five 3 3.3%

Table 3: Response to question 3

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Linguistics 33 36.26%
B. Software 21 23.08%
C. Art 6 6.59%
D. Economy and Management 24 26.37%
E. Others 7 7.69%

2.3 Tool of the research

A web-based investigation system called Wenjuanxing afore mentioned is utilized to analyze the
data. The results and data are authentic and reliable.

3. Results and discussions

According to the research it can be found that nowadays mobile phones have a great effect on
students’ daily life and it reflects in many different perspectives. In this part, we will discuss the results
from three sections: great influence of mobile phones, what are phones used for and college students’
knowledge of the phubbings.

3.1 Great influence of mobile phones

Through a considerable number of investigations, we can see that mobile phones have a great
influence on students. As table 4 shows that nobody thinks our life is independent from mobile phones
and about 45% of informants think they are influenced a lot by mobiles. One of the greatest influences in
table 5 shows in what situations people are prone to use phones. Among several conditions, the highest
rate appears in the time quantum before people go to sleep and after they get up. Also another 28% of

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people decide on the last option which represents that all the conditions mentioned are frequent for
them to use phones. The results directly and strongly support the idea that with the development of
technology the influence of phones is gradually prominent.

Table 4: Response to question 4

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Great influence 41 45.05%
B. Relatively great influence 33 36.26%
C. Kind of influence 17 18.68%
D. Not great influence 0 0%
E. No influence at all 0 0%

Table 5: Response to question 6

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Study or work 16 17.58%
B. Walking or taking the traffic tools 18 19.78%
C. Having meals 3 3.3%
D. Before and after sleep 28 30.77%
E. All above 26 28.57%

Besides, some further details suggest the great influence of mobile phones. From table 6, 7, 8,
the survey reveals students’ degree of dependence on mobile phones, which embodies in two aspects.
First，over 70% of students spend 1-5 hours on their mobile phones. According to the survey, even nearly
20% of students spend 5-8 hours per day with their mibile phones, which covers about one third of their
daily time. Second, nearly 80% of students must or always carry their phones even though they just leave
a moment(within thirty minutes) and over 90% of students say that a day without mobile phones will
make them uncomfortable to varying degrees. Even 13.19% of informants claim that they will return home
immediately for the phone if they forget to take it. Students’ reliance on telephone is apparent and it also
illustrates the great influence of mobile phones.

Table 6: Response to question 8

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Within an hour 5 5.49%
B.1-3 hours 40 43.96%
C.3-5 hours 27 29.67%
D.5-8 hours 17 18.68%
E. More than 8 hours 2 2.2%

Table 7: Response to question 10

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Always have to 38 41.76%
B. Often have to 33 36.26%
C. Occasionally have to 16 17.58%
D. Never have to 3 3.3%
E. Have no idea 1 1.1%

Table 8: response to question 11

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. No difference 7 7.69%
B Slightly uncomfortable 47 51.65%
C. Uncomfortable 25 27.47%
D. Confused, go back home to catch it 12 13.19%
E. Have no idea 0 0%

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3.2 What are phones used for

3.2.1 Tools to communication
The study shows that among the informants, 49.45% of them would like to communicate with
each other through mobile social APPs and only about 10% of participants choose making calls, messages
and letters to connect with others. And another 39.56% informants prefer to communicate with other
people face to face.
Thus, it can be found that:
a. Recently mobile phones are widely used as tools to communicate and many people are used
to social APPs communication and most students prefer to communicate with others through apps on
mobile phone.
b. At the same time it weakens the status of traditional communication channels such as phone
calls or letters because of its convenience and low-cost thus it has a great attraction toward students.
c. In the era of science and technology, a number of students still thirst for communicating with
others face to face.

Table 9: Response to question 5

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Mobile social software 45 49.45%
B. Telephone, short messages 8 8.79%
C. Paper letters 2 2.2%
D. Face to face communication 36 39.56%

3.2.2 For fun

Another purpose of using mobile phones is for fun. Based on the list designed in table 10, we can
see that over 75% of informants use phones to glance over WeChat or enjoy music or movies. Only about
15% of people use the phone to look for study materials or read current news. All in all, recreation is
another main use of mobile phones. It is the entertaining function that may directly results in phubbing
phenomenon.

Table 10: Response to question 7

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Look up information for study 10 10.99%
B. Watching videos or listening music for 24 26.37%
entertainment
C. Look through Weibo and WeChat 47 51.65%
D. Get information of news 3 3.3%
E. Make phone calls or send messages 7 7.69%

3.3 Phenomenon of Phubbing

Just as we supposed, all the participants have heard the concept of “phubbing” before and about
40% of them can always hear it. (Table11) It proves that the phenomenon of phubbing is very common
among the public.
In addition, what is noticeable is that despite 74% of respondents who are opposed to the
phenomenon of phubbing, over 80% of them predict that the phubbing will be more and more common
in the future. However, to our relief, the phenomenon of phubbing is not as severe as we supposed. As
table 13 shows, more than half of the students declare that they occasionally play phones when they are
in class.
How could this happen? Maybe students are aware of the physical harm and social problems
caused by phubbing. But with the development of society, social APPs communication and phone
recreation will be more popular. However, is it a good transformation? And how can we balance face to
face communication and phubbing? The further research focus on its solutions.

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Table 11: Response to Question 14

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Always heard of it 39 42.86%
B. Often heard of it 30 32.97%
C. Have heard of it 19 20.88%
D. Occasionally heard of it 3 3.3%
E. Never heard of it 0 0%

Table 12: Response to Question 16

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. More and more popular 74 81.32%
B. Maintain the present status 6 6.59%
C. Less and less popular 10 10.99%
D. Have no idea 1 1.1%

Table 13: Response to question 9

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Always 8 8.79%
B. Often 25 27.47%
C. Occasionally 48 52.75%
D. Seldom 10 10.99%
E. Never 0 0%

Table 14: Response to question 15

Options Subtotal Ratio
A. Very approve of it 1 1.1%
B. Relatively approve of it 6 6.59%
C. Approve of it 16 17.58%
D. Relatively disapprove of it 58 63.74%
E. Very disapprove of it 10 10.99%

4. Conclusion
Through the result of the finished questionnaire, we came to following conclusions on mobile
phone used situation among college students.
1. With the popularization of phones and diverse powerful functions of phones, students (81.31%)
think phones have a deep influence on their lives. They use phones on many occasions and mainly use
phone as communicating and entertaining tools (81.32%). And an increasing number of students rely on
phones. Most of them (92.31%) would be uncomfortable without phones. But it would result in plenty of
problems such as distracting them from study as the study shows that as much as 90% of students at
least occasionally play mobile phones during class.
2. Most of students (96.7%) have heard of the concept ‘Phubbing’, and they think that this
phenomenon will become more and more popular. According to the survey, over 70% university students
said they mainly use phones for listening music, watching videos and looking through social apps, which
probably is one of the reasons for its popularity. And another 40% of students prefer face-to-face
communication. Therefore, we think the phenomenon of phubbing might be eased with proper guidance.

5. Recommendation
Firstly, the university should help students to cultivate a good habit of using mobile phones. One
of the most important tasks is to inform students of its harm if may have on them and call on the students
to raise their heads from mobile phones.
Secondly, it is essential to develop students’ other interests, such as doing sports or reading. In
this way, students can distract attention from phones and get off the control of mobile phones.
Finally, a better social atmosphere is expected. Many college students are immature enough that

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they can be easily affected by others. A better social atmosphere with less dependence of mobile phones
will lead them away from their phones.

Project number
Supported by Planning Fund of Social Sciences in Liaoning Province (L13DYY035)

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