A Study among Medical Students on Efficient Use of Smartphones for Academic Purposes and the Distractions Caused by Social Networking Sites in a Rural Medical College in South India

Today we are living in a time of expanded digital technology. Integration of computers into medical curriculum has occurred to a great extent. Smart phone has great potentials of being effectively used in medical education. At the same time, distraction and addiction caused by internet use cannot be denied. However, the sheer universality of the use of smartphones can make it a very effective and efficient tool in academics. Before incorporating smartphones in routine use for academics, it is important for us to understand students’ existing trend of use and its implications. The current study was thus planned to explore the use of smartphones with a long-term goal of incorporating technology and making medical education more interesting.

This is across-sectional study conducted in a medical college in Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu among undergraduate students using smartphones. A pretested structured questionnaire was self-administered to the students, and data analysis was done using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) 21. Frequency distribution and proportions were calculated for categorical variables while statistical comparison was conducted using Chi-square test.

Majority of respondents use mobile internet for socialisation and entertainment. Use of mobile net for academics significantly increases among students of third and fourth year as compared to first and second MBBS (p=0.05). Use of search engines is prevalent (61.24%), but knowledge regarding checking for validity of search engines is poor. Use of medical apps is low (24.26%). Preference towards e-learning is uncertain among the students (50.29%). Half of the students support the incorporation of mobile internet and smartphone use in medical education where inclination of boys is significantly more than girls (p<0.05).

Despite access to mobile internet and smartphone ownership, there is inadequate use of these technologies in academics by the medical students, and their involvement in social networking sites is high. Increase in awareness of existing technology, its authentic usage and at the same time monitoring of overuse are required for better utilisation of digital resources to make medical education interesting and interactive.