The Nature of Technology Consumption among School Children in Lower Northern Thailand

Abstract

The use of mobile computational devices among school children is increasing in developing countries. In order to clarify the trends of consuming technological devices, a survey study was carried out with 4,231 students across from the lower northern part of Thailand at Science Fair in Naresuan University between 2014 and 2017. The key findings illustrate smartphone usage is dramatically increasing while PCs and tablets usage is not stable in each year. It is becoming an essential technological device to access for the various purposes in their daily activities. Nonetheless, PCs is still heavily using as teaching aid material at school even students are more likely to access the portable computational devices such as tablets and smartphones than PCs. The breakdown study presents male and female students love to play games on all kinds of mobile devices. The evidences demonstrate mobile consumption amongst Thai school children is shifting towards positive and negative sides. Therefore, the constructive manner of technology consumptions might be varied on some influence factors such as individual knowledge, educational policy, parental controls and teachers’ attitudes towards using mobile devices at class.