To Phub or not to Phub: Understanding off-Task Smartphone Usage and its Consequences in the Academic Environment

This study was inspired in part by calls for research to explore the ubiquitous phenomenon of phubbing in the academic environment. The goal of our study is to explore the phenomenon of phubbing and its consequences among students. Combining observations, questionnaires, quasi-experimental research design and focus groups interviews, our findings suggest that students phub a substantial amount of lecture time and often underestimate the effect this behavior has on their learning process. The quasi-experimental study shows that the number of times a student looks at a smartphone during the lecture is negatively related to the visual attention, while the total duration of smartphone use worsens the auditory attention. Follow-up analysis of the focus group interviews uncovers the causes of the phenomenon and possible preventive measures. The study thus contributes to a growing body of IS research on undesirable consequences of ICT use and provides implications for IS practitioners, simultaneously calling for a better solution of the problem commonly witnessed by the universities: the improvement of the educational process and student performance in the digital society.