Research Review
Clashing Views on Media Effects (77642SP04Y)
Merel Stammes
Student number | 11011637
Word count | 1709 words
Date | 10-03-2019
1
, This research review investigated the paper The Effect of Smartphone Use on ADHD. This paper
researched the effect of smartphone use on ADHD. The researchers also tried to rule out any
third variables to watch if smartphone use was a unique predictor of ADHD. Earlier research on
media effects and ADHD has only looked at the effects of television and computer use, thus by
looking at the effects of smartphone use on ADHD, this paper is the first to look at those effects
on ADHD. This contributes to a new piece of scientific relevance, however, this research paper
has multiple major and minor concerns, which will be outlined per segment of the paper below.
Abstract
Minor concerns
1. The abstract mentions “heavy smartphone use”, but in the rest of the paper “heavy
smartphone use” is never mentioned. Thus, the authors need to remove this term and let it
match with the terms that are used in the rest of the paper (e.g. “smartphone use” or
“exciting smartphone use”) to keep it consistent.
2. It is mentioned that paper-and-pencil-questionnaires are used as a method, but it is never
mentioned again in the article. So, it must be added in the methods section to make it
complete.
Introduction
Major concerns
1. Before getting started on the actual question or hypothesis that is questioned, a clear
definition of the terms that are going to be used in the research paper need to be
explained (“Writing Better University Essays”, 2019). Firstly, because it shows what we
are writing about. Secondly, to avoid misunderstandings by settling on a single
2
Clashing Views on Media Effects (77642SP04Y)
Merel Stammes
Student number | 11011637
Word count | 1709 words
Date | 10-03-2019
1
, This research review investigated the paper The Effect of Smartphone Use on ADHD. This paper
researched the effect of smartphone use on ADHD. The researchers also tried to rule out any
third variables to watch if smartphone use was a unique predictor of ADHD. Earlier research on
media effects and ADHD has only looked at the effects of television and computer use, thus by
looking at the effects of smartphone use on ADHD, this paper is the first to look at those effects
on ADHD. This contributes to a new piece of scientific relevance, however, this research paper
has multiple major and minor concerns, which will be outlined per segment of the paper below.
Abstract
Minor concerns
1. The abstract mentions “heavy smartphone use”, but in the rest of the paper “heavy
smartphone use” is never mentioned. Thus, the authors need to remove this term and let it
match with the terms that are used in the rest of the paper (e.g. “smartphone use” or
“exciting smartphone use”) to keep it consistent.
2. It is mentioned that paper-and-pencil-questionnaires are used as a method, but it is never
mentioned again in the article. So, it must be added in the methods section to make it
complete.
Introduction
Major concerns
1. Before getting started on the actual question or hypothesis that is questioned, a clear
definition of the terms that are going to be used in the research paper need to be
explained (“Writing Better University Essays”, 2019). Firstly, because it shows what we
are writing about. Secondly, to avoid misunderstandings by settling on a single
2
