Blackberry Addiction in Sekolah Bogor Raya By Kellya Sociology Sekolah Bogor Raya Academic Year 2011-2012
TABLE OF CONTENT Introduction 3 Reviewing the literature.5 Hypothesis...7 Research design.8 Research process.10 Interpretation...13 Conclusion..14 References..15
I INTRODUCTION Blackberry has become very famous in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta. A lot of the people might be using it at this moment, including the students at Sekolah Bogor Raya. Various kinds of Blackberry smart phones have been said to complete the people s life or need. Because of the trend of Blackberry, the demand for other old brands of cell phones such as Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericson, Motorola are decreasing. Also, new brands of cell phones such as Nexian and Huawei are trying to copy Blackberry device, especially the messenger and also the style. Blackberry was invented in 1999 as a two way pager. Later, in 2002, the company started inventing cell phones. Blackberry and its technologies were developed by a Canadian company Research in Motion (RIM) to help Blackberry on sending and receiving information using the wireless data networks. Nowadays, there are a lot of types of cell phones that Blackberry sells. They are Curve, Onyx, Bold, Torch, Gemini, Pearl, and many more. There are a lot of applications that these phones provide such as Blackberry Messenger, Email, Internet Browsing, Social Networking (FB, Twitter), and many more. Recently, there are also playbooks invented by the company. The new Blackberry product called Onyx Bellagio were introduced first in Pacific Place Mall, Jakarta, Indonesia because Indonesia is one of the countries which is sells Blackberry products compared to other countries. Nowadays, a lot of people around the world use Blackberry smart phone, including students at our school, Sekolah Bogor Raya. They use variations of Blackberry phones. Many people are obsessed or addicted with the Internet, including children and elderly people and of course teenagers. If the Internet can be accessed in a cell phone with fast connection and portable, many people might buy it and use it all the time. That is why Blackberry is used by a lot of people. This smart phone affects many people including SBR students because of its facilities and applications. This is why I have chosen this topic, because I wanted to find out how Blackberry has changed their life, habit and study process at school. Even though these Smartphone have a lot of advantages, they also have many disadvantages for the
students. I would like to find out how many times they use their Blackberry every day. Because students habits might change because of the use or even they addicted to this kind of smart phones. As you walk in the mall you might see a lot of people holding their Blackberry phones everywhere and sometimes they even laugh with it.
II REVIEWING THE LITERATURE There are basically many information from the Internet, or the newspaper and other things about Blackberry. There is also some information about the addiction of Blackberry towards the society. But if we are talking about teenagers as students, there is not much source about it because normally they explain about it in overall situation, not specifically about the affection to or the addiction of the students towards Blackberry. The web source or the Internet usually explain about how people are addicted to it, but they normally do not explain about the students study process or how they deal with their studies like assessments and homework when they own and use Blackberry. However, some sources said that Blackberry could make us distracted because as you know it has a lot of applications. A few years later after Blackberry has been used by most urban people including teenagers, there is a term or a name which is given to people (particularly teenagers) who are addicted or using Blackberry all the time, even when other people are around. For example, when we are having lunch or dinner with our friends, and then someone at the corner is having fun with his/her Blackberry, and not joining the conversation, many people especially teenagers might say or call him/her autistic. We shouldn t call others autistic just because they are addicted to Blackberry, because it could make that person sad or hurt. One important thing I got from the internet is that Blackberry tops for high radiation handsets, which means that this brand is one of the highest radiated phones ever existed. This is of course dangerous to all ages, including teenagers or children as students because it could jeopardize their minds or brains. Many people, especially teenagers and students, including me, have been using Blackberry so many times. We also use it during night time before we go to sleep to talk to other friends or maybe update a status on Facebook or Twitter. But sometimes we get too tired and we fall asleep with our Blackberry in our hands or near our head. Blackberry has a high radiation because of its signal, especially for the type Onyx and Bold. If our head catches radiation a few times, it will cause headache or even cancer if we put it near our head whether it s accidentally or not. Even though it s only possibility (not accurate or conclusive), we still need to avoid using Blackberry too
much and keep in near our head. Some people advice that we shouldn t get so close to our Blackberry so when we get a call from someone, we better use earphones. People are affected with Blackberry, not just teenagers. But as teenagers and children, also students, are still growing up and if they are using Blackberry, it could distract them from the chores or homework they are supposed to do.
III RESEARCH DESIGN I am going to use one of the research methods which is questionnaire. Questionnaire is numbers of questions put in a paper or online, to collect some information for a topic. Usually we give questionnaires to the experts or the people who have known or experience about the topic. There are 2 basic types of questionnaires, which are closed-ended (closed question) and open-ended (open question). Closed-ended questionnaires are types of questions that are provided with choices of answers, while open-ended questionnaires are types of questions that are usually answered in the respondent s own words. I have given 50 questionnaires to 50 respondents. Types of questions that I have put on my questionnaire: 1. What type of Blackberry smart phone are you using? 2. Why do you choose Blackberry as your hand phone? 3. How long have you been using Blackberry? 4. How many times do you use your Blackberry in a day? 5. What features do you use the most? 6. What are the advantages of using Blackberry? 7. What are the disadvantages of using Blackberry? 8. Has your school achievements changed since you have a Blackberry? 9. How do the teachers respond to you when you use Blackberry? 10. Would you trade your Blackberry with something else? If yes, what is it?
IV HYPOTHESIS Blackberry has been used by many people from all ages, especially teenagers. Because of the changes and improvements of the technology, they are obviously addicted to or obsessed with the Internet connection. Not just Blackberry, a lot of teenagers probably has a laptop or PC (computer) that they likely use it every single day. Browsing the Internet or opening social networking applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and chatting with other people from families or friends have been their habit (what they do every day). I think they are obsessed with Blackberry because it is like a laptop or a computer but in smaller size so they can bring it everywhere they go. Some people actually take their Blackberry smart phones when they go to the toilet. Indonesia is known as a country which follows the trend, so when there are some people using a type of gadget, other people or their relatives would also want to buy and own the similar or even the same gadget so that they can belong to the community. Indonesian people seem to like communicating, interacting and helping other people. They also like to share stories of their lives, like what happens that day and many more. That is why people use Blackberry, in order to get easier way to communicate with their relatives. Holding and using Blackberry is considered as the ID or social status to connect with other people here. Blackberry is famous because of its Blackberry Messenger (BBM) which is better than other phone brands like Nokia, Sony Ericson, Samsung and those kinds of phones as the other phones don t have a messenger service where it s like text messaging but we get to send and receive faster than when we use text message. Blackberry has better features such as social networking websites and email access as it can load faster than other mobile phones, which is why it is called a smart phone. Also, comparing to iphone, which is an Apple product, Blackberry is more affordable or cheaper and plus, iphone doesn t have Blackberry Messenger so it takes longer time to send and receive messages. As students, they need to focus on their study process and school activities. But as teenager they also want to communicate with others so they use it a lot of times, including
school times because we spend 5 days at school. Sometimes teenagers as students play during lesson hours which make their concentration distracted from studying and they become less focused on their work.
V RESEARCH PROCESS I have given questionnaires to 50 students in SBR about Blackberry and how it affects their study process. These are the data that show the students answers the types of Blackberry they are using, the reasons, the period of use, the advantages and disadvantages of using it, their school achievements and also the teachers response. 2 students out of 50 do not use Blackberry as their cell phone. This shows the types of the Blackberry that the students are using. The type that is most used in school is Onyx/Bellagio with 36% Bellagio is the new series of Onyx. The second one is Curve/Apollo which is half of the Onyx/Bellagio with 18%. Apollo is the newest type of Curve. Javelin, Torch and Gemini are between 12% and 14%. The least used types of Blackberry are Bold, Dakota, and Pearl with 2% each. Type of Blackberry Bold Javelin Dakota Torch Curve/Apollo Gemini Onyx/Bellagio Pearl Data not valid 2% 10% 2% 12% 18% 14% 36% 2% 4% There are about 3 reasons why they use Blackberry. Most of them said that they use it so that they can communicate with relatives/friends because other people are also using it as their hand phones (60%). The other students said that Blackberry has many applications and it is stylish because it becomes trendy now, local and international celebrities use it (26%). 10% of the students said that they got the Blackberry from their parents. Reason of using Many applications/stylish Can communicate with others From parents Data not valid 26% 60% 10% 4%
The 3 rd point is the period of use of the Blackberry. Most of the students 58% - state that they always use it. The others said sometimes (14%) and few people said they rarely use it (10%). 9 students didn t exactly state their period of use clearly. Period of use Always Sometimes Rarely Data not valid 58% 14% 10% 18% The 50 students state about 3 advantages of using Blackberry smart phone as their cell phone. 68% of the students said that it s easy to communicate with other people. Social networking like FB and Twitter are also one of the advantages that this smart phone owns (14%). 3 of the students said that the most advantageous thing that Blackberry provide is the internet connection that we can use everywhere and every time. Advantages Easy to communicate Internet Social Networking Data not valid 68% 6% 14% 12% The students said that there are about 3 advantages of using Blackberry as their smart phone, but I ve found out that there are more disadvantages than the disadvantages that were told. The disadvantages are waste of time, distractive or addictive, the battery is easily drained, pending, high radiation (especially the Onyx type), lagging, and expensive. 22% of the students complain a lot about how the battery drains easily and they have to wait for some minutes for the message/chat is delivered pending (18%). Disadvantages Waste of time Distractive/addictive Battery easily drained Pending Radiation Lagging Expensive Data not valid 4% 16% 22% 18% 10% 6% 12% 12%
18% of the students said that Blackberry affects them in a good way because their school achievements have been increasing since they use Blackberry. This may be because they use it for educational things from internet, or maybe dictionary and calculators. There are 8% of the students who said that their school achievement has decrease. 66% of them said that their school achievements didn t change or stays the same as when they didn t use Blackberry as their hand phones. It doesn t affect their scores because they use it just for fun or just to chat with their friends and use it during their spare time. 8% of them don t have Blackberry so they are not affected in anyway. School Achievements Increase Decrease Stays the same Data not valid 18% 8% 66% 8% There are several statements about the SBR teachers response when these students use Blackberry. 40% of the teachers usually will get angry every time they see a student is using Blackberry. Some of them will even take the Blackberry and return it after the subject or after school time, which is about half the percentage of the teachers who will get angry, which is 20%. 12% said that it is fine if we use it and 12% also said that they don t really use it at school. 6% of them said that the teachers will ask them to put it away. Teachers' Response Angry Don't use it at school They will take it They will ask to put it away They don't care/fine with it Data not valid 40% 12% 20% 6% 12% 10%
VI INTERPRETATION From the questionnaire that I have given, I have found out that there are a lot of students using Blackberry as their hand phone. They use Blackberry everyday to contact their parents and friends. The most bought type of Blackberry is Onyx or Bellagio. Bellagio is they newest series of the Onyx type. The main reason of using Blackberry is that because they can use it for communicating with other people, so that they can contact their parents and they can also chat to their friends but their parents and friends must be using Blackberry also to chat through Blackberry Messenger. We can chat or contact other person from out of the country using Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo Messenger (MSN and YM) if they have a computer, laptop or other hand phones that provides chatting software. The main advantages of Blackberry are the same as the main reason of using it, that we are able to talk to other people by using it. The second highest advantage is that it has much software, including social media or social networking sites or software such as Facebook, Twitter, and many more. The students agreed that using Blackberry as their hand phones means another distraction, which distract us from studying or even listening or replying to what our friends or relatives said to us. There are many other major disadvantages that most Blackberry users experience, such as when the battery is easily drained, or it is likely to have low signal and takes a long time to load messages (pending) and all types of Blackberry has high radiation especially Bold and Onyx type. 66% of the students in SBR said that their school achievements stays the same or didn t change because when they do not use it in school or it doesn t affect their scores because they know how to divide the time to study and to play with their phones and computers. Teachers at Sekolah Bogor Raya usually don t allow the students to play with their phones during class time. Some teachers take the students Blackberry when they are using it in class or during lesson hours. Some other teachers just remind or tell the students that they are not allowed to use it when they are studying.
VII CONCLUSION So with the questionnaire data that is shown in the research process, Blackberry smart phone did not disturb Sekolah Bogor Raya students school achievements or scores. Some of the students school achievements stays the same with the usage of Blackberry, some said that it helps them to do their school work as Blackberry can surf the internet easily, has a calculator, translate software, maps and many other applications and facilities that we can use. The problem is that the students might still use their phone during class times, which is actually not allowed. So the teachers might just need to tell the students not to use it or to keep it away from them so that the students will not be distracted and so that the teachers can explain or teach the lesson well. Blackberry can be used for school work also; the teachers can instruct or tell the students to look for information or images, just like laptops, for example if the students did not bring their laptop. What is wrong is that if the students are using Blackberry for cheating during assignments or tests or using it just to talk about random things to other people, or go social networking like updating status on Twitter or Facebook. So everything in life has advantages and disadvantages, including Blackberry. Blackberry can support us during studying and as students and teenagers should use it properly and wisely so that it will not disturb our scores and school achievements.
REFERENCES The History of Blackberry (2009), Web Hosting Report [online]. Available at: http://www.webhostingreport.com/learn/blackberry.html (Accessed 12 March 2012) Blackberry addiction 'similar to drugs' (2006), daily mail [online]. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-401646/blackberry-addiction-similar-drugs.html (Accessed 17 March 2012) Understanding Indonesian Consumers: Gadget Study Case (2010), wordpress [online]. Available at: http://fcarvis.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/understanding-indonesian-consumersgadget-study-case/ (Accessed 17 March 2012) Blackberry and Education (2012), enotes [online]. Available at: http://www.enotes.com/teachers/discuss/blackberry-education-117957 (Accessed 10 May 2012) Students power Blackberry growth (2009), Telecoms [online]. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d11c8642-f2fd-11de-a888-00144feab49a.html#axzz1upkn1dce