PRODUCTIVE OR LIFE-WASTING: THE INCREASINGLY-CONNECTED AND SOCIALLY NETWORKED STUDENTS

Productive or Life-Wasting: The Increasingly-Connected and Socially Networked Students. Often the internet, cell phones and the whole lots of ICT, are alleged to be detrimental to our social lives and our progress especially in relation to students’ performances. Critics say that drawbacks to student cell phones and other electronic gadgets outweigh the benefits. With cell phone use becoming more and more ubiquitous, particularly among university students, and hand phones and the likes of smart phones are becoming more and more sophisticated, tempers run high when it comes to students, schools, and hand phones. The primary concern is that electronic gadgets like smart phones and social networks distract students. Drawing upon this major postulation, this paper examines the positive or negative degree that students are experiencing while they are more or less electronically connected with their fellow classmates, friends, family members or the larger community members. Eliciting the pros and cons of the usage of these ICT gadgets will assist individual universities to make the difficult decision of whether or not to allow hand phones in the classroom. However, this study has found a moderately constrained use of handheld phones over the unconstrained or unused habits to be better in light of grade point averages.