Cell Phone Usage in Females and Males

Cell Phone Usage in Females and Males

Jordan Crawford

University of Northern Colorado

Cell Phone Usage in Females and Males

        Our research question was to see if there were sex differences in the usage of cell phones when walking alone in the University Center at our school The University of Northern Colorado. We hypothesized there would be more females using their cell phones than males while walking alone in the UC. We observed this behavior during a school day at the UC. Following this section, I will get into more detail about what we observed and how we measured the behavior.

Method

Participants

        The participants in our study were all college students that attended the University of Northern Colorado. We observed 95 students total, with 45 of them being male and 50 of them being female.

Procedures

        Pilot study: We conducted this study by going to the University Center at our college and as a group we sat in the middle of the UC and pretended to be working on homework. Two of us were observing the participants and the other was tallying every time we told her what gender we saw alone and if they were using their phones or not.

        Current study: We conducted this study by also attending the UC to observe, but this time we were spread out, one being on one side of the building, one being on the other, and one being in this middle. We each were taking our own observations and tally marks. We observed on a Wednesday at 10:00am. The percentage of agreement was 100% because all observers agreed on the results.

Statistical Analysis

We used a Chi-Square analysis to examine the amount of times each gender used their phone alone.

Results

        Descriptive statistics are reported in table 1. The Chi-Square analysis showed that there is a significant relationship between gender and phone use. 𝑥₂(1, N=95) =10.94, p=.001.

Discussion

        We hypothesized that females would be on their phone more than males when walking alone. Our results definitely supported our hypothesis that females would be on their phone more than males when alone. For future studies, I would suggest we observe more participants as well as observing at different times during the day.

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