Title: "Students’ technology use and its effects on peer relationships, academic involvement, and healthy lifestyles"

Name: Jennifer Eller
Date: 12/16/2009

Reference: Lloyd, J. M., Dean, L. A., & Cooper, D. L. (2007). Students’ technology use and its effects on peer relationships, academic involvement, and healthy lifestyles. NASPA Journal, 44(3), 481-495.

Problem: As technology has become prevalent in the lives of students and in the running of universities, the authors wanted to explore the relationship between students’ technology use and psychosocial development. While previous research has addressed the relationship between computer use and cognitive development, little empirical research has been conducted on how technology use (computers, cell phones, iPods, Gameboys, instant messaging, Facebook, etc) correlates with psychosocial development, such as a student’s peer relationships, educational involvement, and a healthy lifestyle.

Context: 475 undergraduates at a Southeastern large research university were given the research survey in spring of 2006. The survey was distributed in Counseling and Human Development courses. A final convenience sample of 385 completed surveys was obtained.
The survey instrument used for this study contained two parts. The first part asked participants to report the number of hours they used 14 different technologies. The article did not specify if this was the number of hours in a day, week, or other time frame. The second part of the survey included three sections of the Student Development Task and Lifestyle Assessment regarding students’ peer relationships, educational involvement, and salubrious “healthy” lifestyle.

Findings: The authors reported that men tended to use computers for academic work and Gameboys more often then women, while women used Facebook, text messaging, cell phones, and blogs more often than men. In addition, peer relationship scores were negatively correlated with the amount of time a student uses Facebook or watches DVDs. Use of Gameboys, watching TV and DVDs were negatively correlated with a healthy lifestyle. E-mail was positively correlated with a healthy lifestyle. Lastly, educational involvement was negatively correlated with instant messaging, the use of Facebook, iPods, Gabeboys, and watching DVDs.

Recommendations: As the authors point out, it is important for student affairs professionals, as well as educators, to understand the technology students use and why they are using it. As the finding regarding Facebook use having a negative correlation with peer relationships indicates, online relationships may not be a suitable replacement for direct contact. Student affairs professionals and educators may want to keep this in mind as some student services and educational courses move from in-person to online. Professionals should not presume to know the impact moving services online will have and further research and assessment is recommended to verify if online services meet the learning outcomes and results hoped for. For example, if academic advising were to be moved to online through instant messaging, student affairs professionals may assume the benefit is convenience to students, but assessment should be conducted to better understand the impact of moving services online has on students and the professionals providing services to them.