THE USAGE PATTERN OF SMARTPHONE IN GANGTOK CITY

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1 THE USAGE PATTERN OF SMARTPHONE IN GANGTOK CITY Dr. RAVI SHEKHAR VISHAL Assistant Professor in Commerce, Sikkim (Central) University, Gangtok H/P: ravishekharvishal@gmail.com Dr. B. MUTHU PANDIAN Assistant Professor in Commerce, Sikkim (Central) University, Gangtok H/P: rishi151@gmail.com ABSTRACT Smartphone usage is seeing an increase in India and is quickly becoming the dominant way mobile phone users stay connected while they re on the go. Decreasing device and data costs, coupled with a wide range of features on offer, have led to increase in demand for handsets with much more functionality. The Indian Smartphone User study found that 93 percent of smartphone users own only one handset, making it their single source of infotainment on the go. The data revealed that smartphone users in India overwhelmingly prefer mobile devices that operate on the Android operating system. On studying the share of purchases among operating systems, it was found that three out of five consumers, who recently bought a smartphone, preferred Android device - a preference that highlights Indian consumers' desire for a platform that is open and available across multiple brands and prices. The purpose of this study is to better ascertain the gender wise usage of Smartphones, activities wise daily average usage among different age groups as well as usage of smartphones on the demographical variable of occupation and educational qualification. It was also attempted to find out if there is any association between Gender and Usage Rate of Smartphone. The study relies on primary data collected with the help of well-designed questionnaire. A Sample of 100 respondents were selected from among the people of Gangtok, Sikkim (East) and they were provided a questionnaire having 15 statements along with the demographic information. Data was analysed using SPSS Pearson Chi-square test has been done to see the association of Gender and Smartphone Usage Rate. The results reveal insignificant association between the Gender and Smartphone usage rate Keywords: Smartphones Usage Rate, Trends in Smartphones, Usage pattern of Smartphone 1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: Smartphones offer more advanced computing power and connectivity than a contemporary mobile phone. The enhanced features relating to voice call, video call, SMS and MMS have transformed smartphones into a new communication tool. Smartphones have extended list of information processing functionalities such as managing personal time schedule, accessing Internet contents, editing documents, utilizing location-awareness

2 function, and many other exciting applications. Nonetheless, no matter how smart the smartphone is; it will not result in expected benefits and effectiveness, if it is not being utilized. The dramatic growth in the use of smartphones is being driven by a desire among users to stay connected and have instant access to social networking sites global trend that represents an exponential growth opportunity in developing countries like India. The Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights data reveals that 93 percent of smartphone users own only one handset, making it their single source of infotainment. Smartphone users in India overwhelmingly prefer mobile devices that operate on the Android operating system. The study found an interesting trend whereby the voice and text communication via smartphone is declining. Multimedia, games, apps and internet browsing are accounting for 75 percent of the smartphone usage. Among those who purchased smartphone apps, nearly three out of five users (58%) paid for games making it the most popular paid category. Other popular paid app categories among smartphone users include chat and instant messaging (53%) and streaming music (45%).These results generated curiosity to investigate the consumers preference on smartphone, the trend and its usage behaviour in Gangtok.. REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDY: A study by Arpit & Anand (013) [1] provided insights into the factors that influence the choice of a mobile phone model. A study by Kaushal S. K., Kumar R (015) [] found that using costly smartphones is a matter of style and status. Consumers purchase smartphone because their social circle is using it. While considering a brand consumer gives due importance to product features like quality, reliability, unique ability, after sales service and availability of latest technology like operating system etc. Brand name in itself is a crucial and deciding factor for the consumers while purchasing smartphones. A study by Heejune Ahn, Muhammad EkaWijaya, Bianca Camille Esmero (015) [3] found that social and communication applications have shorter usage time and higher daily usage frequency than game applications and the users daily usage time has slight differences and hourly usage time is mostly high at night and decreasing after midnight.

3 A study by Jollie N. Alson & Liezel V. Misagal (016) [4] concluded that Smartphones are commonly used for Socialization by females and entertainment by male students particularly listening to music and watching videos. A study by Gayle R. Jesse (015) [5] provided practical insights for the field of computer information systems by exploring college student smartphone usage and the effects smartphones have on college students. A study by Hejab M. Alfawareh & Shaidah Jusoh (014) [6] conducted at Najran University revealed a current phenomenon of trends in smartphones usage among university students in Saudi Arabia whereby nearly every student at the university owned and fully utilized smartphones as a regular mobile phones/ traditional computer as a means to get connected to online social networks. A study by Noor Mayudia Mohd Mothar (013) [7] revealed that when it came to smartphone, Malaysian undergraduates value their smartphone as it identifies their personality and it could act as an extension of oneself. A study by Walter UYS (01) [8] indicate that the students spend the majority of their time with mobile SNS on Facebook, Facebook Chat, MXIT and WhatsApp by chatting, updating their profiles and statuses as well as monitoring their friends profiles and statuses. Those students with Blackberry s spend their SNS time with BBM by chatting, updating their statuses, and checking on their friends statuses. 3. METHOD OF STUDY: The main objective of this study is to better map the demographical usage of Smartphones in Gangtok with the sample size of 100 respondents. The sample respondents are gender wise equally proportionate among the study area. The pre tested interview schedule was used as the sample survey instrument to gather the usage pattern of the Smartphone in Gangtok. For analytical convenience the Smartphone usage rate was classified into three categories (i.e. High, Moderate and Low). The classification made on the basis of greater than (Mean + 1 SD) is considered as High and less than (Mean - 1 SD) is taken as Low. The values in between (Mean ± 1 SD) category are considered as Moderate. The demographical information which was collected during the primary survey was used to make the cross tabulation. The association of the cross tabulated values are

4 interpreted with the help of percentage analysis. Further, the Pearson Chi-square test was conducted to observe the association between Gender and Smartphone usage rate. 4. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION The demographic information was collected through a structured questionnaire. The data analysis of the collected data is done through three distinct tools namely cross tabulation, percentage analysis and the Pearson Chi-square test to know the association of Gender and Smartphone Usage Rate Gender wise usage of Smartphone: Gender has been an important variable in the earlier studies which have explored the differences in cell phone usage between males and females. It is worth mentioning the two studies by Tulane (010) [9] which revealed that females average more texts a day than males, females use texting as a form of relaxation and females are more likely to use texting to connect with other individuals than males. Beaver s (010) [10] study found that females had higher cell phone use than males. The present study also intended to know if there exists any difference in the usage behaviour pattern and the usage rate between males and females in this Gender demographical variable under study being conducted in Gangtok and if at all there is an association between the usage rate and gender. The table # 1 indicate that, overall 77 % of the smartphone users are using their smartphone at a moderate level. 84 % of the female smartphone users are using their smartphone at moderate level and similarly around 70% of the male smartphone users are using their smartphone at the moderate level. Further the researcher interested to know about the association between the usage rate and gender. The association test results reveal that, the gender and usage rates are not statistically associated. 4.. Activities wise Daily Average Usage (in min): The usage behaviour pattern between males and females show a very diverse usage in context to different activities such as Social Networking, Socialising, Entertainment, Texting, etc. A study by Jollie N. Alson& Liezel V. Misagal (016) concluded that Smartphones are commonly used for

5 Socialization by females and entertainment by male students particularly listening to music and watching videos. Similar study by Tulane (010) revealed that females average more texts a day than males. Majority of the studies have shown that females have higher smartphone use than males. In the present study also the intention was to find the specific activities where females spend more time in comparison to the males and vice - versa. It is worth mentioning that the Pew Research centre (Report: February, 016) entitled, Smartphone Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging Economies concludes that Social Networking is the single largest usage across the 40 countries surveyed, which include Facebook and Twitter in all countries plus other popular country-specific social networks. The Australian Cut (part of Deloitte s Global) Mobile Consumer Survey, 015 shows the usage preference in the order of Social Networking, Instant Messaging and Watching Short Videos and News Reading respectively in different age groups. The intention is to capture the diversity in usage in different activities in context to time and conclude whether the trend in Gangtok is in line with other studies or different. The table # indicates that male respondents use more of their Smartphones then the female respondents. Male respondents spend (1hrs&30min) while the females use (1hrs&5Min) of their Daily Average Time for making Phone calls. Excluding voice calls the respondents also uses Smartphone for other activities, like male respondents use (hrs&10min) for Texting(SMS, Whatsapp, Hike etc) while the female respondents use only (1hrs&38min) of the Daily Average Time for Texting. For Social networking male respondents use (1hrs&40min) and female respondents only use (1hrs&9min) of their Daily Average Time. For Entertainment male respondents use (1hrs&5min) while the female respondents use (1hrs&5min) of their Daily Average Time. For the News update male respondents use (6min) and the female respondents only uses (3min) of their Daily Average Time. For Online Surfing male respondents spend (1hrs&50min) while the female respondents use (hrs) of their Daily Average Time for Online Surfing.

6 4.3. Age group cum Activities wise Daily Average Usage (in min) of Smartphones: The studies around the world reveal that the most active users of Smartphones are in the age group of It is worth mentioning that Pew Research Centre (Report: February, 016) concludes that the younger generation in the age group of show > 80 percent usage to approx percent in the > 45 age category. The Australian Cut (part of Deloitte s Global) Mobile Consumer Survey, 015 reveals that the age group of shows the usage preference in the order of Social Networking, Instant Messaging and Watching Short Videos respectively. The age group of > 45 shows preference for News Reading apart from first preference for Social Networking. Similarly in a survey report by Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights it revealed that the youth are quick to adopt internet connectivity on their smartphones with over half of all data users falling in the sub-5 year bracket. The study also found that voice and text communication via smartphone is declining. Multimedia, games, apps and internet browsing made up the 75 percent of usage. This study takes into account the age as a demographic variable under study to know the usage rate across the age groups for different activities in order to check whether the study in Gangtok corresponds with the views in other studies and reports or the trend is different. The table # 3 reveals that the respondents >47 years spend (hrs&3min) and <16 years spend (1hr) to make phone calls. Respondents belonging to age group <16 spend more time (9hrs&5min) while >47 spends less time (1hrs&36min) in texting. Respondents belonging from age group of <16 spend more time(6hrs) while 17-6 spends less time (1hrs&7min) in social networking. For Entertainment respondent from age group spends more time (1hrs &36min) while <16 spend (1hrs&15min) of their daily average time. For News Update respondents from age group 17-6 spend more time (33min) while >47 spends only(1min) of their daily average time. For online surfing respondents from age group 17-6 spends (1hrs&min) of their daily average time while <16 spends (3.5hrs) of their daily average time. All together respondents from <16 age group spends more time using smart phones for different activities Occupation wise Usage of Smartphones:

7 Occupation is the other demographic variable analysed in context to the usage rate of Smartphones under the present demographic study in Gangtok. The studies have shown that the maximum usage rate has been among the teenage and youth who are mostly the learners or students. The usage of Smartphones for Socialisation, Entertainment, Information, Texting and Apps are mostly utilised by them. Job holders mostly use Smartphones for Communication purposes. In the present study the maximum respondents belong to the age group of <16 years classified as Learners which also depicts the High Smartphone usage rate in comparison to the other classifications. From the table # 4 it is revealed that among the 100 respondents 48% of the respondents were learner/ students, 9% of the respondents working in Government sector, 10% of the respondents working in Private sector, 17% of the respondents were selfemployed and the 16% of the respondents were from other category. It also revealed that Learner/Student spend more time using Smartphone among the other users and the respondents from Government Sector spend less time using Smartphone than the other users Education Qualification wise Usage of Smartphones: It is generally witnessed that the Smartphones usage rate increases with the increase in the educational level. It is worth mentioning that Pew Research Center (Report: February, 016) also revealed that in addition to age, there are also differences on social networking use among internet users by education. However, significant gaps on education are not as common for social networking as they are for overall internet access. It was also concluded that Internet users with more education are significantly more likely to use social networking sites compared with less educated Internet users. The present study also suggests that high Smartphone usage rate is seen among the PG respondents in comparison to Schooling, Diploma or UG holders. The table # 5it is revealed that, Demography of the sample reveals that 17% are in or have completed Schooling, 0% completed/ pursuing Diploma/UG. 49% have completed/pursuing PG and 14% are from other category. Out of the 100 respondents 13% of the respondent uses their Smartphone at low rate, while the 77% of

8 the respondents uses their Smartphone at moderate rate and 10% of the respondents use their Smartphone at high rate. 5. CONCLUSION: The objective of the study was to ascertain the reason for which the people of Gangtok make use of Smartphone & to analyse the [] usage of features, software and applications Kaushal, S. K., Kumar, R. (015). Consumers reaction towards Smart phones: A study of students of University of of Smartphone. Study shows that Lucknow, India.BVIMSR s Journal of respondents from the age group <16 uses Management Research, 7 (), Smartphone at high rate for different activities. And the majority of respondents (48%) who use Smartphone at high rate were Learner. The education qualifications of the major respondents were PG. The Smartphone despite its many sophisticated features and ability to pull in information from seemingly anywhere is still a phone, and phones are about communicating with other people. It should come as no surprise, that the most popular types of information consumed on a Smartphone are not new: text message, online surfing, social networking and making phone calls. It was also found that a male respondent spends more time using Smartphone in comparison with female respondents and 100% of the respondents were aware of their Smartphone Operating System. REFERENCES: [1] Arpit, L, Anand, B. (013). A Study into the Usage Pattern of Smartphone Owners among Students and Service Class. International Journal of Engineering and Management sciences, 4 (), [3] Heejune Ahn, Muhammad EkaWijaya, Bianca Camille Esmero (013). Understanding Usage Pattern of Korean Smartphone Users. Advanced Science and Technology Letters, 39, [4] Jollie N. Alson, Liezel V. Misagal (016). Smartphones Usage among College Students International Journal of Research in Engineering & Technology (IMPACT: IJRET) ISSN (E): ; ISSN (P): , Vol. 4, Issue 3, Mar. 016, [5] Gayle R. Jesse, (015). Smartphone and App Usage among College Students: Using Smartphones Effectively for Social and Educational Needs Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference (015) Conference on Information Systems and Computing Education Wilmington, North Carolina USA [6] H.M. Alfawareh, S. Jusoh, (014). Smartphones Usage Among University Students: Najran University Case International Journal of Academic Research

9 Part B; 014; 6(), DOI: / /6-/B.48. [7] Noor Mayudia Mohd Mothar, Musa B. Abu Hassan, Md Salleh B. Haji Hassan, Mohd Nizam Osman (013). The Importance of Smartphone s Usage among Malaysian Undergraduates IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science (IOSR- JHSS) Volume 14, Issue 3 (Jul. - Aug. 013), PP e-issn: , p- ISSN: [8] Walter UYS, (01). Smartphone Application Usage amongst Students at a South African University IST-Africa 01 Conference Proceedings Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds) IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 01 ISBN: [9] Tulane, S. (010). Perceptions of Texting: A Comparison of Female High School and College Students. Retrieved from Questia: [10] Beaver, T. (010). Hold The Phone!": Cellphone Use and Partner Reaction Among University Students. Retrieved from EBSCO host: connection. ebscohost. com/ c/ articles/ /hold-phone-cell-phoneusepartner-reaction-among-universitystudents List of Tables Gender Male Female Table #1: Gender wise usage of Smartphones Smartphones Usage Rate Low Moderate High (16.0%) (70.0%) (14.0%) (10.0%) (84.0%) (6.0%) (13.0%) (77.0%) (10.0%) (100.00%) (100.00%) (100.00%) Source: Primary data Authors own computation available on request X Value (sig.).99 NS (0.31) Table # : Activities wise Daily Average Usage (in min) Daily Average time (in minutes) Activities Male Female Making Phone Calls Texting (SMS, Whatsapp, Hike, etc) Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc)

10 Entertainment (Listening music/watching Movies etc) News Update Online Surfing ( ~8 Hrs.) (~ 7 Hrs.) Source: Primary data Authors own computation available on request Table # 3: Age group cum Activities wise Daily Average Usage (in min) of Smartphones Activities Age Group Wise Daily Average Usage (in minutes) < >47 Making Phone Calls Texting Social Networking Entertainment News Update Online Surfing (~ 17 Hrs. 30 Mins ) (~ 8 Hrs.) ( ~ 9 Hrs. 30 Mins ) Source: Primary data Authors own computation available on request Occupation Learner Government Private Self Employed Others (~ 9 Hrs.) Table # 4: Occupation wise Usage of Smartphones (~8 Hrs. ) Smartphone Usage Rate Low Moderate High (6.3%) (77.1%) (16.7%) (100.0%) (.%) (77.8%) (0%) (100.0%) (10.0%) (90.0%) (0%) (100.0%) (9.4%) (70.6%) (0%) (100.0%) 1 16 (1.5%) (75.0%) (1.5%) (100.0%) (13.0%) (77.0%) (10.0%) (100.0%) Source: Primary data Authors own computation available on request

11 Education Qualification Schooling Diploma/UG PG Others Table # 5: Education Qualification wise Usage of Smartphones Smartphone Usage Rate Low Moderate High (9.4%) (70.6%) (0%) (100.0%) (0.0%) (70.0%) (10.0%) (100.0%) (4.1%) (79.6%) (16.3%) (100.0%) (14.3%) (85.7%) (0%) (100.0%) (13.0%) (77.0%) (10.0%) (100.0%) Source: Primary data Authors own computation available on request