“When you are at a lecture or at dinner with friends or family, do you put away your phone?” On 9 October 2018, Mr Sik-Cheong Chow presented a lecture at UIC on how people can possibly become addicted to their phones.
Dean of the Division of Business and Management Prof Stella Cho welcoming Mr Chow
Mr Chow has 42 years of teaching and administrative experience in education, with exposure to various types of education institutes, including serving as the founding principal of The Chinese Foundation Secondary School in Hong Kong.
The title of Mr Chow’s lecture was “Screen Power: A double-edged sword – Screen addiction or self-enhancement toolkit?” He was very engaging with his audience, and started his presentation with questions for students to answer.
He continued by describing how phones had benefits and consequences, stating that phones are “not just cameras, but also a computer”. This is regarding how phone users can use their devices for online schooling. Other beneficial qualities include using phones as a source of knowledge and information, as well as using translation and maps.
However, Mr Chow also explained some of the consequences of screen addiction. He stated how some people suffer from a “Fear of Missing out”, which causes them to be glued to their phone.
He then described the consequences that could affect daily tasks. Mr. Chow described multitasking as “doing more than one job that requires cognitive activity”, which is actually people just switching from one task to another. This can have multiple effects: loss of memory and reasoning, shallow analytics, unrefined cognition, and most importantly for students to know, a decline in academic and job performance.
The lecture was part of the Academic Seminar of the Division of Business and Management.
Reporter: Marissa Furney
Photographer: Ben Wen
Editors: Deen He, Étienne Fermie
(From MPRO)
