Nowadays, the word “smartphone” has become synonymous with many teenagers’ lives. 60% of “tweens” aged 10-14 and 84% of teenagers aged 15-18 own cell phones. In China, 71% of people aged between 15 and 24 own smartphones. (see Appendix II for graph on other countries)

Smartphones are no ordinary phones. They are highly sophisticated. It offers more advanced features compared to ordinary feature phones. Other than just being able to call and send text messages, smartphones come with many available applications that can be downloaded on the different app stores. These applications range from entertainment to social networking to books. There are so many applications that offer many different functions. It is impossible for feature phones to compute and send information over the internet a fast as a smatphone.

Framing Your Research Topic

Focus of project:The first thing many people think about when the word “smartphone” is said is the iPhone. The iPhone has become very popular in the daily lives of many working professionals and even teenagers. Apple has successfully made the word “iPhone” become synonymous with the word “smartphone” . The numerous versions of the iPhones realeased by Apple have continuously met the needs of consumers. Making it the highly successful product it is now. Just recently, it was not uncommon to hear teens or kids tell their parents, “Dad, mum, I want a white iPhone 4.” We can see that even teens go crazy about the iPhone when new models launch and people end up scrambling to get the latest version of the iPhone. Thus, the main focus of the project would be on the iPhone.However, the topic on iPhones has to be narrowed down. Thus, I have decided to only focus the project on teenagers aged 13 to 18 in Singapore. Since we are around the same age, it is easier for students like us to relate to the information they give.

Framing Your Research Topic (cont’d)

Disadvantages of iPhonesNeedless to say, iPhones have many positive points. They are extremely convenient and useful. Furthermore, it is definitely a great step forward that Man has made in the field of technology.However, more can be done. The iPhone is far from perfection and in fact, it has numerous disadvantages. Since people rarely point out these disadvantages, I have decided to base the project on this.Examples of disadvantages are:

1. Gaming Addiction2. Social Networking Addiction3. Jailbreaking4. More Convenient Exposure to Undesired MaterialsThese disadvantages are all connected to each other in different ways (one leads to another). In fact, even the solutions I have to offer usually revolve around the same thing.

Framing Your Research Topic (cont’d)

Possible Reasons for the Presence of Such Problems, How They Affect Teens in Singapore And How To Curb Them1. Gaming Addiction

– Possible ReasonsThere are many reasons for addiction to iPhone gaming. In the iPhone app store, there are countless games developed for mostly teens and kids. When teens are exposed to certain games by their friends, they might start playing them excessively, thus developing an addiction.

– How they affect teensIn Singapore, for teens, grades are mostly everything. The “ideal” Singaporean teen’s life is, “get good grades, get to a good school, get a good degree, get a comfortable life.” When too much time is spent on gaming, students have a significantly lesser amount of time to study. They then would not be able to keep up in school, leading to bad grades and the complete opposite of the “ideal life”. They would have to work much harder to achieve their goals. If the addiction follows them into adulthood, the same problems might occur too. It is not impossible to succeed, just that a lot of hardwork is needed.

– How to curb such problemsTeens should start to curb these problems early. Some ways are for parents to limit their playing time or not letting them play on their smartphones.

Framing Your Research Topic (cont’d)

Possible Reasons for the Presence of Such Problems, How They Affect Teens in Singapore And How To Curb Them2. Social Networking Addiction

– Possible ReasonsWith an iPhone, teens can easily access social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter with ease. Furthermore, these can be accessed on-the-go. With their iPhone beside them, teens can get easily distracted while studying.

– How they affect teensLike the problem of gaming addiction, social networking addiction may lead to a similar demise.

– How to curb such problemsThis problem can also be solved with some self-control and parental limits.

Framing Your Research Topic (cont’d)

Possible Reasons for the Presence of Such Problems, How They Affect Teens in Singapore And How To Curb Them3. Jailbreaking

– Possible ReasonsTo quench teen’s thirsts for more cool games for free and/or cooler-looking iPhones, software hackers have come together to produce something called “jailbreaking”. The app Cydia allows users to download things illegally and do almost anything they want to the iPhone.

– How they affect teensIt is obvious that jailbreaking is as good as hacking. If teens use jailbreak to get things for free illegally, it can be compared to stealing. Although doing such a thing seems minor, it might end up leading teens down the wrong path by teaching them wrong morals.

– How to curb such problemsFrom my point of view, parents can help in this too. However, it is impossible to stop jailbreaking unless Apple can fix all the loopholes in it’s software. It comes down to self-control again.

Framing Your Research Topic (cont’d)

Possible Reasons for the Presence of Such Problems, How They Affect Teens in Singapore And How To Curb Them4. Convenient Exposure to Undesired Materials

– Possible ReasonsTeens are still in the stage of growing up. With the iPhone, it makes content that is only suitable for adults more accessible to them.

– How they affect teensLike the problem of jailbreaking, it would teach teens wrong things as they might still be too young to be exposed to such things.

– How to curb such problemsMostly, parental guidance and self-control come in handy again.

Framing Your Research Topic (cont’d)

Evaluating and Comparing Effectiveness of Solutions

I feel that many teens will listen to their parents despite their apparent defiance. Thus, it is an effective way of solving many problems, especially those named earlier.Many teens still lack full self-control. Most buckle to the pressure of their temptations. Thus, it might not be very effective to leave teens on their own.

Promising SolutionThrough different forms of media, parents can be brought into the lives of teens. Parents with teens that combat these problems can be informed about different ways to combat this problem, for example:1. They can work with their children to come up with a timetable to help

them organise their time and give them specific times to play games/go on Facebook and study.

2. Parents can track their teen’s phones to see if they were doing anything undesirable behind their backs and talk to them about the problems of doing such things.

There are still many possible solutions but these two seem like the most practical. As long as parents try to get into their children’s lives, they would be able to understand what’s going on and reasons for them.

Framing Your Research Topic (cont’d)

Reason for Topic of ChoiceAs mentioned above, the reason for choosing the iPhone is it’s popularity and the reason for narrowing the wide spectrum down to teenagers is because of the common way of thoughts we share due to our similar age. However, there are other reasons for my choice.Teenagers are in an important stage of development in their lives. By letting their parents understand the problems of smartphones (and in particular, iPhones), parents can understand their children more and build stronger bonds with them. Instead of just providing my own solutions, I would also look at the ways parents are using to help their children and their level of effectiveness. After collating all the information, I can come up with a good solution that can help a lot of teens that have been affected by their iPhones. By stopping their addiction, not only can they make their lives more comfortable, individuals that suceed in future can also contribute in a huge way to Singapore’s society and help bring our small country forward.I can also find out why certain parents only want to give their teens a feature phone even if they are able to afford an iPhone. The reasons they give can be compared to the problems I have identified to give me a even bigger idea of the situation.

Feasibility

I feel that this project is quite feasible as we can easily scope down spectrum towards parents and the way they help their children, in particular, teens. These groups of people are specifically indentified and conducting a random survey is still considered quite an easy task. Furthermore, with the increasing number of teens owning iPhones, it is significantly easier to find the target group that we need.

Manageability

A random sampling can help give a broader idea of the problem and how it is handled in different families. It can be done in a short time frame as it is easy to see the trend after one survey. There might not be many problems faced as the problems pointed out are very common in Singapore and it would be easy to find people to help in research.

Accessibility

Information is quite easily accessible through reliable primary sources as the survey will provide a good source of first hand information. If surveys cannot be done on a large scale, the project can be scaled down to RI Year 1 students. However, I would hope not to do so as by getting results from normal schools, we would be able to see the full picture of the problem in Singapore. If w only focus on elite schools like RI, the problem might be quite different.

Appendix I

• Information about percentage of teens with cell phones (slide 2 line 2) Kids That Own Cell Phones. (2008). Retrieved from

http://www.cmch.tv/mentors/hottopic.asp?id=70 • Information about percentage of teens (slide 2 line 3) Teens That Own Smartphones. (2011, January 14). Retrieved from

http://www.textmessageblog.mobi/2011/01/14/smartphones-female-teens/

Appendix II

Graph of global smartphone usage against feature phone usage