European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education (Apr 2023)

Smartphones and Learning: Evaluating the Focus of Recent Research

  • Kendall Hartley,
  • Bobby Hoffman,
  • Alberto Andújar

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe13040056
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 4
pp. 748 – 758

Abstract

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The smartphone has become integral to most aspects of students’ lives and is the primary conduit for accessing the internet. Objective research into the promise and dangers of this device is critical. While educational uses of the smartphone with young adults hold promise, the potential for harm is also present. While objectivity is valued, the focus of researchers can subjectively skew towards optimistic or pessimistic views of technology. The topics addressed in smartphone and learning research illuminate trends and potential biases in the field. This study investigates the issues addressed in smartphone and learning research in the past two years. These topics are compared with smartphone research in a similar field: psychology. The study, using a bibliometric approach, identified an overall negative arc of the literature towards topics such as addiction, depression, and anxiety in the psychology literature. The educational literature topics were comparatively more positive than psychology. Highly cited papers in both fields reflected explorations of adverse outcomes.

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