Medical News Today has the report which may cause even more anxiety for millions of college students who couldn’t go a day without their phones.

Cell phone use linked to lower college grades, anxiety

Researchers in Ohio have found that frequent use of cell phones by college students is tied to poorer academic performance, anxiety and unhappiness. This is according to a study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

The researchers, from the College of Education, Health and Human Services at Kent State University in Ohio, describe how they surveyed more than 500 college students about their cell phone use and compared their responses with their college grades and results of clinical tests they undertook for anxiety and life satisfaction or happiness.

Not decrying the usefulness of the smartphone to today’s college students, which allows them to stay in touch with family and friends and easily browse the Internet, the researchers suggest there is merit in considering what potential harms they may pose.
This is particularly relevant, especially as recent research like the Pew Center’s Internet and American Life Project suggests college students are the most rapid adopters of cell phone technology.

The majority of the students who took part in the study were undergraduates, equally distributed by class (freshman, sophomore, junior and senior), and there were also 82 self-reported majors.

First author Andrew Lepp, associate professor at Kent State, and colleagues compared the participants’ self-reported cell phone use against their college grades – the students gave them permission to obtain their cumulative college grade point average (GPA) from the university’s official records.