A shop in your pocket: Schoolchildren’s ideas about the capabilities of mobile devices

Abstract

Mobile devices (MDs) have firmly entered the daily lives of children and adolescents. MDs are used for a variety of purposes ranging from communication and Internet access to obtaining weather information, using maps, managing time through reminders and calendars, taking photos, recording video and solving learning tasks. The previous studies on the influence of MDs on the learning activities of schoolchildren have contradictory results, which makes it important to focus on substantive characteristics of MD use rather than just formal ones (frequency and duration). This study aims to identify schoolchildren’s ideas about MD capabilities in educational and extracurricular activities. Focus groups were used as the main empirical method, as they allow to highlight the phenomenology of the subject of research. From January to July 2023, nine focus groups were held with schoolchildren of various ages (elementary, middle and high school). The total number of participants was 123 people aged 9 to 17 years. Based on the results of classification of responses, an inductive thematic analysis was carried out. The results of a qualitative analysis of the focus The smartphone is the central category of MDs in the minds of focus group participants — it is the smartphone that makes it possible to solve a variety of life tasks. Instant communication with other people remains the key function of MDs. The ideas of schoolchildren manifest the categories of MD use corresponding to the models of digital behavior of adults (financial behavior, orientation in public life) and express the negative attitudes broadcast by adults in relation to MD. In general, the focus of schoolchildren’s ideas about the capabilities of MDs is hedonistic, while the developmental potential of using MDs is practically not manifested. Despite the obvious influence of adults on the formation of schoolchildren’s ideas about the capabilities of MDs, we found no teacheror parent-guided strategies of using MDs for educational purposes.