CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the study

Globalization has changed our lives and one of the ways in which it is changing our lives, everyday, is how we communicate; thanks to advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). One of the ICT’s which is seeing rapid advancement is Mobile Phone. Mobile phone is popular since the late 1990s (Meek, 2006) and today, with 7 billion mobile connections worldwide and unique mobile subscriptions of over 3.5 billion (Twum, 2011), they are very popular with young people and are commonplace in our educational institutions. These phones are no more just voice communication tools. Functions like short message service (SMS) or texting have become global phenomenon. Not many of us keep wallet photos of loved ones.  

Internets have become an almost essential part of daily life since their rapid growth in popularity in the late 1990s, Ling (2004). A nationwide survey conducted in 2010 shows that internets are the most necessary medium of communication for students. It has virtually affected the society’s accessibility, security, safety and coordination of business and social activities and has hence become a part of culture of the whole world. Ling (2004), states that traditional agents of socialization are families and schools. With the expansion of educational system as a result of the need for highly skilled workers lead to the school system taking increasing larger responsibilities in socialization. Surprisingly, research on the influence of internet on our schools today has not been given much attention. There is the conflicting priority of young people, parents and teachers in relation to the internet device, with teachers more concerned about issues such as discipline in the classroom and parents worried about means of contacting their children at every point in time.

Ling (2004) discovered that the use of internet in schools is problematic. As Ling and Helmerson (2000) states, the internet is “at cross purpose with the mission of the school”. While in school students are supposed to take on their prescribed roles as students with full concentration on their studies and free from contact with the outside world. However, the

internet gives room to blending students’ roles with other roles thus distracting and disrupting the students’ academic work (Gergen, 2002; Halpen,2003; &Franzini, 2002). In the past when fixed telephones were the norm in schools, there were minimum distractions and disruptions but presently with the invasion of internet and the eagerness of parents to maintain contact with their wards, the device is becoming part of the classroom. Thus, the internet has the power to undermine the schools’ authority and weaken their control over students as well as affects their level of academic performances.