The Relationship of Cell Phone Usage to Personality and Attention

Cell phones seem to create distraction and anxiety in student’s daily lives. The present study tests if distraction would occur just by the ring from a cell phone (i.e. they will score lower on the lecture quiz). The procedure will include 40 students enrolled in two sections of Introduction to Psychology. In one section, a backpack will be situated on an empty desk with a cell phone inside which is set to ring during a normal classroom lecture. Once the lecture ends (in both sections), a quiz will be issued about the PowerPoint including slides showing during the cell phone ring. A survey consisting of neuroticism and withdrawal measures (DeYoung, Quilty & Peterson, 2007) will also be issued to the classroom students as well as 70 other participants using surveymonkey.com. The survey will examine the relationships between personality and attention between those who are compulsive texters versus those who are light texters and it will also examine gender differences. It is hypothesized that 1) males text to exchange information and females text to socially connect, 2) those who are compulsive texters experience higher neuroticism and higher withdrawal versus light texters, and 3) cell phones are highly distracting in a classroom setting. Results revealed that those who use their cell phones more often tend to have higher neuroticism and withdrawal, cell phones are not distracting in a classroom setting, and males and females generally text for the same purposes. CELL PHONE USAGE TO PERSONALITY AND ATTENTION 3 The Relationship of Cell Phone Usage to Personality and Attention Cell phones and texting are generally distracting and detrimental to attention (driving, school, work, etc.). Researchers have shown that cellphones affect attention (O’Connor, Whitehill, King, Kernic, Bresnahan & Ebel, 2013; Schwebel, Stavrinos, Byington, Davis, O'Neal, Jong, 2012; Thornton, Faires, Robbins, & Rollins, 2014). It is therefore important to examine all situations in which using cell phones are potentially harmful to one’s social or occupational life. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than nine people are killed and more than 1,153 people are injured in motor vehicle crashes per day (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). Cell phones are not only detrimental to driving but also to other activities that demand attention. Previous research has suggested that students able to text in class receive lower grades than those who do not text in class (Dietz & Henrich, 2014). According to the Pew research center, cell phone ownership has reached 91% of adults as of May 2013 (Rainie, 2013). Nomophobia is the term for cell phone addiction, and is an anxiety inducing condition that has rather damaging effects to the individual. Symptoms of nomophobia include experiencing anxiety or panic over losing your phone, obsessively checking for missed calls, e-mails, and texts, using your phone in inappropriate places, and missing out on opportunities for face-to-face interactions (Bellum, 2013). Since nomophobia has recently become more prevalent, more research has been done to show how cell phone use affects personality (Reid & Reid 2007); (Delevi & Weisskirch, 2013). In studies such as Sanchez-Martinez and Otero’s (2009), cell phone usage has a significant link to depression, substance abuse, and school CELL PHONE USAGE TO PERSONALITY AND ATTENTION 4 failure. It important for our society to recognize the negative impacts cell phones have on personality. Personality Scale The Big Five Aspect Scale by DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson (2007) undertook three studies to test the validity of the 75-item Big Five Aspect Scale (BFAS). In the first study, data was collected from the Eugene-Springfield community. The study tested internal validity. Four hundred and eighty one members (200 male and 281 female) participated in taking the BFAS as well as completing the Revised NeuroticismExtraversion-Openness Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and the International Personality Item Pool (AB5C-IPIP). The NEO-PI-R breaks down each of the Big Five items into six facets while the AB5C-IPIP breaks down the items into nine facets. The Minimum Average Partial (MAP) test was used to determine correlations among variables for each test. The MAP test was able to successfully identify only factors strongly correlated across inventories. The BFAS’s 75 facets were all conformed to the Big Five structure except for Trust and Assertiveness from the NEO-PI-R and Reflection from the AB5C-IPIP. The second study consisted of 480 undergraduate participants from southern Ontario (299 female and 180 men). The study calculated the highest correlations between the ten factors using the regression method. The IPIP was administered and one item was added to assess extraversion. Cronbach’s Alpha was used to assess the reliability of the BFAS and was found to be . 83. The third study looked at how well the two factors within the facets of each Big Five corresponded to biological factors. Jang, Livesley, Angleitner, Reimann &Vernon (2002) used 481 participants from study 1 and compared the NEO-PI-R to biological factor scores in the CELL PHONE USAGE TO PERSONALITY AND ATTENTION 5 Eugene-Springfield sample. Results proved that the two facets of each Big Five were highly correlated despite compassion and intellect being not correlated due to underrepresentation in the NEO-PI-R. After completing these three studies, DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson concluded that the BFAS is a reliable tool to be used in research that assesses personality components. Cell Phone Usage and Attention A study about cell phone use and driving was conducted by O’Connor, Whitehill, King, Kernic, Boyle, Bresnahan, Mack, and Ebel (2013). It effectively measured cell phone use and its correlation to motor vehicle crashes. Three hundred and eighty three undergraduate students were asked to complete an online survey about cell phone use and driving history. The Cell Phone Overuse Scale (a 24 item questionnaire known as CPOS) was used as a measure for compulsive cell phone use, asking questions related to frequency of behaviors representative of the habit. Using the four sub-scales (anticipation, activity interfering, emotional reaction, and problem recognition), high scores on the CPOS were associated with the female gender, elevated anxiety, and insomnia. Impulsivity was measured based on the Impulsive Behavior Scale which has 59 questions related to planning, negative urgency, sensation seeking, persistence, and positive urgency. Alcohol use was based on the 10-item questionnaire called the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Relationship style was measured according to the Relationships Style Questionnaire which includes 30 questions related to romantic and non-romantic relationships. The last measure of driving history was based on the three questions, “How many years have you been driving? ” “What is the most serious type of car accident in which you have been involved while driving? ” and “How many CELL PHONE USAGE TO PERSONALITY AND ATTENTION 6 accidents have you been involved in while driving, regardless of the severity of damage done to your care? ” It is seen from this study that heightened anticipation of a phone call or text is strongly associated with car crashes. This study showed increased risk, but there is no statistical significance that these two are directly correlated. Schwebel, Stavrinos, Byington, Davis, O’Neal, and Jong (2011) researched distraction and pedestrian safety and the impact talking on the phone, texting, and listening to music has on crossing the street. Using students from an introductory psychology course, 138 participants were asked to complete three questionnaires. The first was completely about the participant’s demographic and the second a documentation of their walking habits from morning until night. The third questionnaire addressed the participant’s typical use of technology during the weekdays and weekends. After thoroughly completing each survey, the participants were asked to engage in an interactive experience. They were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (music, talking on the phone, texting, or no distraction), and instructed to cross the street while partaking in their assigned task. There were five measures of safe street crossing which included average time left to spare, looks left and right before crossing, looks away from the virtual road, number of times participants were struck by a vehicle, and gaps between vehicles when participants could have crossed safely but did not. The results indicated that both texting and listening to music involve mental processes different from a telephone conversation. Texting involves reading and typing which is extremely distracting while trying to perform other tasks. Listening to music involves a disruption of auditory signals that are important in pedestrian environments. CELL PHONE USAGE TO PERSONALITY AND ATTENTION 7 However, the distracted groups did not miss more safe opportunities to cross the street than the undistracted group. Another study conducted by Thornton, Faires, Robbins, and Rollins (2014a) hypothesized that the mere presence of a cell phone would have a negative impact on thought processing and task performance. A total of 54 undergraduate students with ages ranging from 18 to 46 were recruited to participate in an experiment where two manipulations occurred: a cell phone placed at the end of the table of one group and a notebook placed at the end of the table of the control group. Participants were timed in two tasks: Digit cancellation and Trait Making Test. Once the tasks were properly explained, participants were to complete them as fast as possible while the cell phone was present. The Attentional Behavior Rating Scale was used to assess attentional difficulties and the Cell Phone Usage survey collected data relating to how often participants used their ce