Comparative Study of Phubbing between two Latin Public Universities

Abstract

The objective of this study was to know the levels of phubbing in higher education students, from two countries of the American continent, to know if they are similar and if there is a correlation with some demographic and school variables, to determine some areas of opportunity that allow them to be minimized. A quantitative approach was used, using a measurement instrument developed by Cao, Jiang and Liu (2018). The sample was made up of 107 students from each participating university. Thus, it was possible to know that more than 40% of the participating university students, from both countries, agreed that they use the cell phone in class to attend to personal matters without the consent of the teacher, in addition to finding a strong association between the dimensions of the phubbing with age, gender, and academic status. It can be concluded that phubbing presents similarities between Mexican and Colombian students, since the percentages of cell phone misuse, especially in class and without the consent of the teacher, evidencing an upward trend in the short term if they are not established emergent care strategies. Likewise, it was possible to identify associations between the dimensions of phubbing with some personal and school characteristics of the respondents, which opens the door for future research.