Mobile phone use has become more common even among students. Would using mobile phone have any implication to students’ achievement? Recently, Liu and colleagues investigated the relationship between prolonged mobile phone use and academic performance among adolescents in China.
The study was based on a sample from Shandong Adolescent Behavior and Health Cohort conducted in 2015. The survey examined students’ weekday and weekend mobile phone use, sleep duration, insomnia, depression, and self-reported achievement. Among the sample of 11,831 students, the researchers were able to obtain the year end achievement tests score for Chinese, Mathematics, and English of 856 students following the baseline survey for the analysis. The results were as follows:
- Students achievement significantly decreased should their prolonged mobile phone use was more than 1 hour on weekday and 2 hours or more on weekend.
- After controlling for their backgrounds, students who used mobile phone more than two hours during weekday and five hours during weekend scores significantly lower on English and Mathematics than those who used mobile phone less than an hour per weekday and two hours per on weekends.
- Reduced sleep duration, insomnia, and depression mediated the relationship between prolonged mobile phone use but the extent is just small.