A SURVEY OF THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Globally, the use of mobile phones among adults and youths, especially teenagers, in secondary school has increased dramatically in recent years. The study was a survey of the use of mobile phones on senior secondary school students in Lagos state. The descriptive survey research design was used for the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 450(180 male and 270 female); (301 public and 149 private) Senior Secondary School Students from 70 secondary schools across the 57 Local Government Areas (comprising the 20 original Local Government Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas) in Lagos State. The instrument used for data collection was a self-designed 15-item questionnaire designed on five-point Likert scale with a reliability coefficient (r) of 0.85 obtained through a test-retest method. The data collected were analysed using frequency counts and simple percentages while t-test was used to test the only hypothesis stated in the study. The results showed that there were diverse operations that senior secondary school students perform on their mobile phones. These range from making voice calls, internet browsing, chatting to downloading music/movies and snapping pictures. The results also showed that majority of the students in senior secondary schools used their phones to browse social networking sites but they rarely used their mobile phones to download school work or assignment. The findings also revealed that there was no significant difference between gender and the use of mobile phones among senior secondary school students. It was recommended that some major stakeholders (parents, guardians and teachers) in education should monitor the kind of activities that their children/wards/students perform with their mobile phones. Teachers can also encourage the use of mobile phones by giving students tasking projects and/or assignment that will enhance educational attainment.