Nomophobia Prevalence among Pre-service Teachers: A case of Trakya University

Year 2017, Volume: 7 Issue: 1, 0 - 0, 16.01.2017

Deniz Mertkan Gezgin , Evren Şumuer , Okan Arslan Soner Yıldırım

Abstract

Mobile phones has become an indispensable tool for modern society. Although usage of cellular and smart phones make individual’s life easier, they may also create some negative consequences such as addiction, anxiety, fear or unrest due to overuse. Nomophobia, which is called as phobia of modern era, is defined as fear and anxiety feelings that an individual feels while he/she cannot access or reach to mobile devices. Especially, with the prevalence of smart phones, it is thought that increased interaction with mobile communication technologies also boots nomophobia of individuals in the society. Nomophobia impair individuals focusing on their works in every part of their lives. Nomophobic behaviors may change daily habits such as sleeping habits and concentration on lessons, especially nomophobia affects students in a negative way in terms of school life and academic achievement. The purpose of this study is to investigate nomophobia prevalence among 818 pre-service teachers who are students in different departments at a state university in Turkey during the 2015-2016 fall semester. In this causal-comparative study, descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, and one-way ANOVA analyses were used. Results showed that according to mean score of the instrument, pre-service teachers’ nomophobia levels are higher than the mean and they feel anxious about not being able to communicate and not being able to access information.  In addition to this, although there is not a significant different in terms of mobile phone usage hours, female pre-service teachers were found more nomophobic than males. Moreover, it is seen that when age increases nomophobia decreases, however in terms of smart phone usage frequency it is different: as usage frequency of smart phones increases, nomophobia increases as well.

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