Me,myself and my mobile: A segmentation of youths based on their attitudes towards the mobile phone as a status instrument

The importance of the mobile phone in the life of adolescents has led observers to speak of a Mobile Youth Culture. One of the central characteristics of this youth culture is the use of the mobile phone as a means to display or enhance one’s status in the peer group. To date, however, little attention has gone out to the different uses adolescents may have for their mobile phones. Therefore, this study aims to further our understanding of the heterogeneity in adolescent mobile phone use by examining whether we can distinguish between different ‘mobile lifestyles’ within the Mobile Youth Culture. Drawing on a quantitative survey among 1943 Flemish adolescents (12–18 years), we differentiated three lifestyles based on their attitudes towards the mobile phone as a fashion article, as a display of one’s popularity and as a display of one’s time scarcity. A two-step cluster procedure based on respondents’ scores on these three mechanisms revealed three different segments: trendy users (N = 603), engaged users (N = 864) and thrifty users (N = 436). These segments showed significantly different profiles in terms of socio-demographics, their use of the mobile phone in the presentation of the Self and the mobile phone’s role in their friendship relationships.     

The adoption and use of mobile phone in rural China: A case study of Hubei,China

This paper examines the behavioral and psychological factors influencing the adoption and use of mobile phone in rural China. Based on the diffusion of innovations and perceived needs theory, this research, through a case study of Hubei, China, supports the theoretical model that both behavioral and psychological factors can predict Chinese rural residents’ adoption and use of mobile phone. Psychological factors, however, play a weaker role in rural residents’ adoption and use of mobile phone than do behavioral factors. Moreover, behavioral factors can significantly predict some of the psychological factors. By adding behavioral factors into the theoretical model, this study supplements the perceived needs theory and extends it from urban setting to rural setting. Implications of the findings have been discussed.     

Developing ecological index for identifying roles of ICT industries in mobile ecosystems: The inter-industry analysis approach

With the convergence of information and communication technology (ICT) industries in the mobile communication sectors, new actors have started emerging such as mobile contents and media service industries. The traditional distribution of power in ICT industries of mobile communication sectors has significantly changed based on relations with the new actors. Recently, the concept of a “mobile ecosystem” which embraces this environmental shift is highlighted. The traditional industries such as hardware and network-based firms and new ICT industries such as software and service-based firms grow up simultaneously creating the mobile ecosystem. In this respect, this study aims to explore ecological indexes for identifying roles of ICT industries in the mobile ecosystem. To be specific, the ecological indexes are proposed to take new roles and position of ICT industries in the perspective of ecosystem into account. For this, the inter-industry analysis, which includes the physical flows between industries, is mainly used since the ecosystem is operated by streamlining physical flows. First, the mobile ecosystem is structured by using physical input-output flows and industrial relationships. Second, to explore roles of ICT industries in the mobile ecosystem, four ecological indexes have been developed and combined based on the result of inter-industry analysis: productivity, size, spillover effect, and coverage. As a result, we identified six roles for ICT industries and their relationships: commodity, landlord, controller, keystone, facilitator, and dominator. Regarding these ecological roles and relationships in ICT industries, strategic and policy implications are also suggested to improve the health of the mobile ecosystem.