Opportunities for Using Smartphones in the Digital Era to Facilitate Students in Learning Sociology in High Schools

The development of information and communication technology in the digital era encourages the use of smartphones in various fields of life, such as the field of education. This condition opens up opportunities for the use of smartphones in teaching and learning activities. This study was conducted to identify opportunities for using smartphones to make it easier for students to learn, especially in understanding sociology learning materials in high school. This type of research is descriptive qualitative research. The research subjects were social studies students of class X SMA with a total of 149 students. Data collection methods in this study were surveys and interviews using questionnaires and interview guidelines as research instruments. Data analysis was carried out in four stages, namely (1) data collection, (2) data reduction, (3) data presentation, and (4) drawing conclusions. The results of this study indicate that there is a great opportunity for the use of smartphones in the digital era in the learning process, especially sociology in high school. The opportunity is the implementation of game-based mobile learning or Mobile Game-Based Learning (MGBL). It is known that the use of smartphones by students is most dominantly used to play games with a percentage of 32.90%. Thus, Mobile Game-Based Learning (MGBL) as a learning medium is an opportunity to use smartphones to make it easier for students to learn sociology because it encourages students to be more active, creative, and innovative in the learning process. The conclusion of this study is that Mobile Game-Based Learning (MGBL) is a great opportunity for using smartphones in the digital era to make it easier for students to learn sociology in high school.