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Because the researchers had the opportunity to teach courses at SQU, they were able to observe the strong relation with and heavy use of Smart phones among SQU undergraduates. These students used their devices when they were walking around, during classes and even when they were eating in the cafeteria. For many reasons SQU students can develop Smartphone addiction. First, Smart phones have functions that enable students to avoid communicating with others face-to-face

Combining a survey and focus groups as a mixed-methods research, the authors of this chapter examined the functions, types, and motivations of smartphone usage and gratifications. Furthermore, the authors also investigated the rates, symptoms, and reasons of smartphone addiction. Still another achievement of the authors was to look into the relationship between smartphone usage, gratifications, and addiction with academic achievements among college students. On top of identifying three levels of addiction, the authors also located distinctive traits of these levels. This chapter provided an interesting example of how mixed-methods research can be employed to investigate mobile use, gratifications, and addiction. It is expected from the editor that this chapter would lead to more comparative studies between or among countries or cultures using by using a mixed-methods research to triangulate and/or complement findings of using different research methods. The inclusion of this chapter in this volume is also meant to invite further studies to investigate the gap between what mobile users want and what they actually get from using mobile as well as its related experience on both the normative and the empirical sides.

This study, which was conducted in the fi rst half of 2005, investigated the nature and extent of use of school libraries by teachers in preparatory and secondary schools in Oman. It evaluated in detail the types of material and the range of ser vices used. It also assessed the extent of teachers' satis faction with provision.The results of the survey revealed a low use of school librar ies by teachers. School libraries held poor collections, es pecially of audiovisual materials, journals and electronic resources, and access to the Internet. Teach ers expressed their dissatisfaction with library services which appeared poorly developed and tended to be tradition al in character.

In addition to the studys main focus on smartphone addiction among Sultan Qaboos University Undergraduates undergraduates, it also investigated particular issues such as the following: smartphone applications and activities that students were most addicted to, the impact of addiction on academic achievement, and addiction variation according to gender, field of study, parental education and family income. A ques tionnaire was distributed to a random sample of 140 undergraduates (37.1% males and 62.9% females) Findings revealed that what the study calls a casual level of addiction (42.3%) was the most common, followed by a heavy level (30.8%), and finally a moderate level (26.%). While messaging was the activity students were most addicted to, no significant differences were found that related to academic achievement. Males were more addicted than females, but nothing significant emerged in relation to field of study, parental education and family income.