Abstract:
The rising effects of innovative achievements in smartphones and human-computer interaction (HCI) generally has changed the face of formal teaching and learning processes while it has simplified sourcing for information, its storage and retrieval, it has also exposed the unsuspecting user to distraction. Smartphone provides interactive features for an increasing wider users around the world. It has become an integral part of everyday student’s life. Various scholars have studied smartphones without dealing with aesthetics of it while other studies in the HCI field which study aesthetics have basically dwelt on websites’ usage, therefore, the following research questions became necessary:(1). What are the kinds of gratification that students seek from smartphone use?(2).What is the influence of visual aesthetics on obtaining the desired gratification? (3). How do students utilize smartphones to support learning? (4). What is the relationship between smartphone gratification of students and their academic performance?On this note, this study sought to investigate how users are affected by the aesthetic features of their smartphones, determine if problems in academic performance are in anyway influenced by smartphone use, and how can the frontiers of academic pursuit be advanced with advantages that it offers. The areas covered in the literature include empirical and conceptual studies in smartphone, visual aesthetics, uses and gratifications theory, evaluation of aesthetic components as well as academic performance. The research instrument employed was questionnaire which was constructed based on the Uses and Gratifications Theory. It measures users’ satisfaction according to their self-reported judgement of satisfaction and it was administered by purposivesampling. Factor analysis and correlation were used to analyse the data collected and test the hypothesis. The findings indicate significant relationship between smartphone visual aesthetics and how students employ smartphone in learning support while satisfaction sought and derived from smartphone use does not affect students’ academic performance.Excessive Use of smartphone constitutes a major detriment to the academic performance of students. Therefore, among other recommendations, it is suggested that students should adequately channel their priority for smartphone use to productive activities to achieve their academic goals, sincevisual aesthetics of smartphones and HCI generally are beingimproved daily, product designers should inculcate more cognitive tools needed to achieve utilitarian purposes in their products.
