Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/54913
technology Surprising Attitudes Toward Texting A SURVEY OF 1,043 STUDENTS at the University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business and Economics in Durham recently captured media atten- tion with a surprising finding: Forty-nine percent of students surveyed actually feel guilty about texting in class, and 36 percent believe texting should be prohib- ited in the classroom. But many do it anyway—especially business stu- dents. The survey showed that 65 percent of business students admit to sending at least one text message in a typical class. The survey was conducted by students in a market- ing research class taught by adjunct professor Chuck Martin. The survey is a semesterlong project, in which students learn the fundamentals of market research and then choose a survey topic. Then, they conduct explor- atory research, design and test the survey, and refine it before conducting the survey on a large scale over two to three days. Martin divides the class into teams, each of which surveys one department in the school. The researchers started the texting survey expecting not only that students would approve of in-class texting, but also that the majority would own smartphones, says Martin. They also expected that students would feel stressed if they weren't allowed to check their messages. Both assumptions turned out to be false. While 45 72 May/June 2011 BizEd percent of business students owned smart- phones, only 36 percent of the general student body did. That number dropped to 21 percent among engineering students. Martin's class was most surprised that 61 percent of the students surveyed said that they aren't bothered when they aren't allowed to text. Many reported that they are more stressed when they feel com- pelled to check their text messages. Fifty- one percent said that texting distracts them from class material. Ironically, during final presentations, each team put a cell phone number on the board and asked the class to text their questions to the number. One team mem- ber fielded the questions, and the others answered them as they spoke. "By the end, the Q&A was already finished," says Martin. "In that case, texting was very effective. I even texted my own questions to them!" Martin's students have recommended that a future survey be conducted of UNH faculty and staff, to gauge their attitudes about texting. The full study is available at www.unh.edu/news/ docs/UNHtextingstudy.pdf. Last year, Internet users: • numbered 1.97 billion as of June. • sent 107 trillion e-mails, including spam. • watched 60 billion YouTube videos—each month. • posted • included 250 million Facebook users in January. tweets on Twitter. • included 600 million Facebook users by December. —From Royal.Pingdom.com 25 billion