College students spend almost half their waking hours using their smartphones, but they're not using them to talk.
A surprising
study from Baylor University found that actual voice conversation may be a dying art among young academics who instead use cellphones to send text messages and email, surf social media, play games, and visit websites like Pinterest and Instagram.
And according to another
study from Kent State University, it is not doing their grades, anxiety levels, or physical shape any good.
Use of smartphones is very sex-specific, the Baylor study found. Women love Pinterest, using it for about 26 minutes each day, as compared to men, who visit Pinterest for only a daily minute.
Women spend three times as much time on Instagram as men, who spend three times more time than women playing games. Men reported spending 24 minutes each day playing games, while women only spent eight.
Women like Facebook much more than men, spending 46 minutes per day on Facebook compared to 31 minutes for men, and women spend 30 minutes a day on Twitter, while men only spend 22.
The Baylor study found that female students use their cellphones more than male students, with women spending an average of 10 hours each day on the gadgets and male students averaging eight hours daily. Women spend 105 minutes each day texting and man spend about 84 minutes, while both spend about half that much time writing emails,
SFGate reports.
One-third of those surveyed said they send up to 90 text messages each day, while some sent more.
Cellphone use also is increasing among college students. Last year's Kent State study discovered that students were spending about nine hours each day using cellphones, and cautioned, "As the functionality of cellphones continues to expand, addiction to this seemingly indispensable piece of technology becomes an increasingly realistic possibility.
"Study results indicate that certain activities performed on one's cellphone are more likely to lead to dependence than others and that these addictive activities vary across gender.
"The use of modern smartphones can be both freeing and enslaving at the same time."
The study found that cellphone use was negatively related to students' grand point average and positively related to increases in anxiety.
The study also found that students who spent the most time on cellphones had become "phone potatoes," spending less time in physical activity and performing worse on treadmill physical tests then students who spend much less time using their cellphones.
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