Existing literature suggests that a high frequency of cellphone use results in negative academic outcomes. Researchers have focused on generalized studies students and looked at television and video gaming screentime. This research intends to uncover the correlation between cellphone usage and AP students. (Khan, et al., 2022) found that across 38 countries, children who keep 4 hours or more screen time proved lower academic performance. Though, they did not consider social media screen time and its effects on AP (Advanced placement) high school students specifically. The reason filling this gap is important is because of how integral cellphones have become teenagers’ daily lives. Looking at how students use them throughout the day can show how they affect concentration, study habits, and goals set by the students themselves leading to their overall academic performance. Looking into the correlation could provide insight into how students’ cellphones might be the reason for their performance in an advanced academic setting and how they should be managed either by the student, teacher, parent, or policymakers.

     Earlier studies have determined the effects of television and video games on an adolescent’s academic performance but lack research facing cellphones in the academic setting. It’s been established in this area of study that over four hours of mixed-media intake is considered an addiction. At 4 hours of media intake is when you can start seeing a negative correlation in screen time and academic performance. Adolescents who reported having 4 or more hours of screen time reported having higher school stress and dissatisfaction (Khan et al., 2022). Most of the literature on this topic uses surveys and interviews to conduct their research by asking students questions related to their GPA, class participation, and average daily screen time.

This research will specifically explore cellphone use in academic settings for the purpose of how cellphones should eventually be limited or managed. The study will specifically research cellphones on AP (Advanced Placement) students in high school to get a look at how cellphones should be limited in these specific classes. This paper categorizes academic performance as how well the student maintains GPA. This study will include an examination of AP high school students by conducting a survey enlisting questions relating to their end-of-semester and end-of-year GPA, as well as average test scores in AP classes. In doing so, this paper hopes to find the correlation of cellphone screen time and academic performance specifically in higher education classroom settings. The study will be conducted in a suburban high school in the academic year 2024-2025 with students in years 9-12. This research will not look at other factors that may affect academic performance like sleeping disorders, extracurricular activities, and socioeconomic background and status

      Overall, the participants reported to have an average daily screentime of 8.25 hours (M=5.5, SD=8.10). There were screentime hours ranging from 2 to 20. GPA average was 3.8 weighted (M=4.0, SD=0.8) The GPA’s ranged from 3.5 to 4.5. Looking at the specific groups of students, between seventeen advanced placement students, an average of 7.41 AP classes were taken (SD=1.07). There was a minimum of 6.5 and a maximum of 9 AP classes. The generalized studies student’s average was 2.64 AP classes (SD=1.19). The minimum was 1.5 and the maximum was four AP classes. Based on this studies specific classification of advanced placement students and generalized studies students, there wasn’t an overlap based on numerical data present in the participants’ answers to the survey. 

     Throughout all the answers submitted by participants, the most commonly reported screentime time range for a week was between twenty to thirty hours and also commonly reported forty plus hours. Only a small percentage of 15.2% of students altogether reported 0-10 hours of weekly screentime. There was no large apparent difference between the two groups of students’ weekly screentime average because both groups reported very high screentime for their averages. Many of the students from both student classifications reported that they “Often find themselves picking up their phone while working on academic assignments.”  A very small portion of the students altogether report that they can remain focused on completing their assignments when their cellphone is present. 

After examining the results, there is enough evidence to determine that the initial hypothesis was unsupported. When a student has a high average daily and weekly cellphone screen time, there is a higher chance of low academic performance. The results provide sufficient evidence to answer the research question: what is the correlation between cellphone screen time of AP students and general studies students and their academic performance? The correlation of cellphone screentime and academic performance between the two classifications of students didn’t echibit a major relationship. Though, looking at the data, generalized studies students had lower GPA’s 

The results of this paper align with data presented in (Rogers 2019) highlights how teenagers are spending more than seven hours of days on their cellphones, which supports this studies results identifying that students are typically spending six to seven hours a day on cellphones. To create an overall understanding of the relationship with cellphone screen time academic performance, (Adelantado-Renau) results identify the relationship between screens and devises with screen time suggested an inverse relationship of the two variables, which contradicts the results of this study that found a weak positive relationship between cellphone screen time and academic performance 

Limitations 

The study overall faced many limitations that may have been impactful on the results. A major limitation that may have had a significant influence on the result is likely sample size. With only 24 results to the study, there’s a possibility that the low number of participants influenced the R-value in the Pearson Correlation to result in an inconclusive relationship. The study also may have been affected by the time-constraint. One major limitation could also be that the participants that replied to the survey were only in grade 10^th and 11^th grade. The very limited range of participants can have major impacts on the study's results. Other limitations could be based on the fact that some questions were based on questions that rely on self-reported data. The questions in this study are based on the assumption that all students know their GPA and screen time. Screen time is easy to access in settings, but some may have estimated their answers. Environmental limitations could be where the survey was taken by the participants, which is not accounted for. This study specifically does not look at external factors, such as sleep, mental health, and other technological screen devices like consoles, computers, VR (Virtual Reality), televisions, etc. 

Implications 

The findings of this study could possibly mean beneficial implications. Students could read this study and. Look at the correlation between cellphone screen time and GPA and use it to improve their time spent away from cellphones and more towards academic activities to better their overall academic performance. Teachers could take the results and make classroom rules where students must put their cellphones away to enable and teach their students better study habits and promote participation within the classroom. They could learn towards phone cubbies for all class or even just use phone cubbies as punishment for when a student shows negative and inefficient cellphone management habits when in a class. Polices could even be made school-wide enforcing students to put their phones away in a locker, pocket, or cubby during class times to promote better cellphone management and prevent excessive cellphone usage. Current students can make better habits for themselves based upon the findings of this study and even help impact their futures in positive ways to not be reliant on their cellphones throughout the day. 

Future studies could focus on different aspects of screen time topic conversation. Many different facts were not considered within this study. Researchers could look into the ways mental health can affect screen time on cellphones and how that may have an overall impact on academic performance. Other studies could look at the way all screen time devices together could majorly impact a student’s academic performance. Looking into other age groups and how their screen time may have shifted within the last decade could also be beneficial to adding new knowledge to the existing academic conversation.