Assessment of digital literacy and use of smart phones among Central Indian dental students.

objectivesEducation has largely been digitalized. More so, for professional education, keeping updated in this fast paced world has become a necessary requisite and dentistry has not been left untouched. This cross sectional questionnaire based study aimed to assess the digital literacy and smartphone usage amongst the 260 Central Indian dental students including their perspicacity about smartphone/internet usage for learning purposes. The students' attitude for implementation of digital technology in study programs/education system was also evaluated.

methodsThe questionnaire was distributed among total 260 dental students from different dental institutes of Central India. The data was collected and analyzed using SPSS software.

resultsOut of 260 students, 250 were internet users, out of which 56% had internet access all time. 94.23% students owned a smartphone. 46.53% (114/245) students had some app related to the dentistry in their smartphone device. The commonest site for surfing related to knowledge seeking was google scholar (72%) followed by Pubmed and others. Nearly 80% dental students believed that social media helps them in their professional course studies. Post graduate students showed statistitically significant difference from undergraduates and interns in terms of knowledge of keywords, dental apps and reading research journals. 89.23% students were keen for implementation of e-learning in their curriculum.

conclusionThis study reflects willingness of dental students to adopt digital revolution in dental education which in turn may present an opportunity for educators and policy makers to modify educational methods and thereby advance student's current learning approaches.