Dental students' uptake of mobile technologies

The aim of this study was to understand how new mobile technologies, such as smartphones and laptops, are used by dental students.

A questionnaire was distributed to undergraduate dental students from years 1 to 4, at the University of Birmingham Dental School. Questionnaires were completed between February and April 2013.

Two hundred and seventy questionnaires were completed. Laptops 55% (145) and smartphones 34% (88) were the most popular choice of device for connecting to the net and searching information. Laptops were preferred in first and second year. Students in year 3 preferred mobile phones, and by year 4 the use of mobile phones and laptops was similar. The top two application ideas chosen by students as the most useful on their smart phones were a dictionary for dental education (56%) and multiple choice questions (50%). Students who chose smartphones as their first choice or second choice of device strongly agreed that having the Internet on their smartphones had a positive impact on their dental education (55%). With laptops (48%), students preferred to be at home when using them while for smartphones (31%) they used them anywhere with a connection. E-mail (47%) and social networks (44%) were the top two Internet communication tools used most on laptops. Instant messaging was popular on smartphones (17%).

Depending on the year in the course, laptops and smartphones are the most popular choice of device and desktop computers are the least popular. Applications on smartphones are very popular and instant messaging is an upcoming form of communication for students.