"Hold the Phone!": Cell Phone Use and Partner Reaction among University Students.

Analysis of survey data from 995 undergraduates at a large southeastern university revealed that 93% reported owning a cell phone and a statistically significant difference between women and men (95% versus 91.2%) and between Whites (95.1%) and Blacks (87.7%). In addition, Blacks were twice as likely as Whites to be bothered by their partner's use of a cell phone. Explanations, implications, and limitations are suggested. ********** Cell phones are as common as Starbucks before the recession. It is almost impossible to walk across campus without seeing someone chatting on a cell phone. Kroski (2008) reported that 9 out of 10 college students in the United States own a cell phone with Generation Yersages 18 to 27, leading the pack. Indeed, the University of Cincinnati provides a free cell phone to incoming freshmen (Roach, 2006). Stam and Stanton (2004) asked a sample of college students to give up their cell phones for 48 hours and revealed that the students reported great distress in doing so. University faculty are certainly aware of (and sometimes annoyed by) student cell phone use as some have developed policies to prohibit cell phone use in class (Campbell, 2006). Wei and Lo (2006) pointed out that the cell phone has evolved from a necessity/luxury for business into an important facilitator for social relationships. They examined cell phone use among Taiwanese college students and found that it strengthened family bonds and helped to maintain social relationships. Aoki and Downes (2003) also studied cell phone use among college students and noted that it facilitated keeping parents and offspring connected and provided a layer of safety. But cell phone use also has its drawbacks. Chesley (2005) analyzed longitudinal data (N = 1,367) from the Cornell Couples and Careers Study and concluded that cell phone use was linked to increased distress and lower family satisfaction. The researchers noted that cell phones have blurred the boundary between work and family in that parents/spouses are often distracted by cell phones which interfere with their role performance. They referred to this as "role boundary permeability" whereby one is physically present but psychologically or behaviorally involved in another role or focus (Ashforth, Kreiner & Fugate, 2000, p. 474). For example the spouse will be at home at the dinner table but be talking on the cell phone. This study documented the cell phone use among a sample of undergraduates at a large southeastern university. We were particularly interested in gender and racial differences and the degree to which students viewed the cell phone use by a romantic partner as a problem. Methodology Data for the study is based on a large nonrandom sample of 1027 undergraduate student volunteers at East Carolina University (ECU) who answered a 100-item questionnaire (approved by the Institutional Review Board of ECU) on "Attitudes and Behaviors of College Students". Respondents "completed" the questionnaire anonymously. The researcher was not in the room when the questionnaire was completed and no identifying information or codes allowed the researcher to know the identity of the respondents. The term "completed" is in quotation marks since some respondents did not respond to all questions. The result was 995 usable questionnaires from respondents who answered "yes" or "no" to the question, "I use a cell phone regularly". Of the nine hundred and ninety-five respondents 93.8% checked "yes" and 6.2% checked "no." We also assessed gender and racial differences. In comparing men and women and Whites and Blacks, cross-classification was conducted to determine any relationships with Chi Square utilized to assess statistical significance. The majority (67.4%) of the 995 respondents were female with male participants representing only a third (32.6%) of the sample. The median age was 19 with almost half (47%) of the respondents being first year students. …