3.4 Adoption and Use of Mobile Phones by University Students and Academic Staff 55
3.4.1.2 Adoption of Mobile Phones Amongst University Students in the Developed
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82.2% of the respondents owned a smartphone whilst 24.8% owned a tablet PC. Four issues are worthy noting in this study. Firstly, the findings reflect the trend in previous studies (Booth, 2014; Dahlstrom and Bichsel, 2014) whereby smartphones had a higher penetration rate compared to tablet PCs. Secondly, the study shows that students were moving towards multiple ownership of mobile devices to take advantage of the unique capabilities of each device. Whilst this study indicats that 21% of the respondents owned both a smartphone and a tablet PC, it also reveals that over 61% of non-smartphone owners were considering purchasing a smartphone within the next six months, while 53% of non-tablet PC owners were likely to purchase a tablet PC. This signifies that the number of people owning multiple devices was bound to increase. Thirdly, when these findings are compared with findings of the ECAR (2012), which is the same year when this study was conducted, one notices that both smartphone and tablet PC ownership among international business students of the University of Illinois (82.2% for smartphones and 24.8% for tablet PC) was much higher than that of American students (62% for smartphones and 15% for tablet PC). Looking at the larger picture, one would notice that Americans have generally lagged behind people from other countries in accepting the mobile phone. For instance in 2012, the mobile phone penetration in America was at 96.01 %. On the contrary, other countries such as Austria (160.54%), Finland (172.32%) and Hong Kong, China (229.24%) had penetration rates that were almost double the figure recorded in the USA (ITU, 2014). Fourthly, the study had, furthermore, reinforced the dominance of Apple brands in the American market which accounted for a third of total smartphone ownership and closely followed by Android devices. The ECAR (2012) study, however, indicates that 44% of the respondents owned an iPhone whilst 46% owned android devices. Apple dominance in the smartphone and tablet market had widened further in 2014 as 58% of the undergraduate students indicated that they owned an iPad while 54% of the smartphone owners indicated that they owned an iPhone and only 43% of the respondents indicated that they owned an Android phone (Dahlstrom and Bichsel, 2014).
3.4.1.2 Adoption of Mobile Phones Amongst University Students in the Developed and
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world comprises of countries not included on this list, most prominently, China, India and South Africa, among others.
The literature on mobile phone ownership among students in the developing world is sparse.
However, a number of studies, nevertheless, exist that tend to discuss mobile phone ownership in general (Kumar, 2014; Zheng et al., 2014; Bradley and Holley, 2012). In a longitudinal study of first-year Business School students at London Metropolitan University, Bradley and Holley (2010) tracked mobile phone ownership among students between the years 2005 - 2009. The results indicated that mobile phone ownership among students was always high for most of the years as it ranged from 98.6% in 2005 to 100% in 2009. The study further noted that the number of internet enabled phones increased considerably from 56.5% in 2005 to 80% in 2009 whilst phones with Wi-Fi capability equally shot up from a meagre 1.4% in 2005 to 50% in 2009. This study did not make a distinction between feature phones and smartphones. However, the increase in phones with WiFi capability implies that the number of smartphones was on the increase.
In a related study, Kumar (2014) sought to find out the opinions of students about the success of mobile technology in libraries. This study which was conducted at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, India involved a randomly selected sample of 180 students.
Results of this study indicated that 93.89% (96.84% males and 90.59% females) of the students had either a smartphone or an ordinary phone. More importantly, this study revealed addictive tendencies associated with mobile phones among the students whereby the majority of the respondents (71.6%) could keep a mobile phone close at all times while (82.25%) stated that they could survive without food for one day but not without a mobile phone. This study further noted that the larger percentage of female students displayed addictive tendencies to mobile phones than male students.
Comparatively, the two studies reviewed above differ and also resemble those conducted in the USA in certain areas. As already discussed, the ECAR (2007) study had put the mobile phone penetration amongst undergraduate students at 86.1% (85.3% for males and 86.6% for females). However, the study conducted by Bradley and Holley (2012) in the UK the same year indicated that mobile phone penetration was at 98.5%. This signifies that mobile phone penetration among USA undergraduate students was slightly lower than that of their counterparts in the UK. On the other hand, results of the ECAR (2007) study resemble those
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obtained in a study conducted by Kumar (2014) in India, in that in both studies male students had a higher percentage of mobile phone ownership although the two studies were conducted in two different environments and also within a seven year difference.
Studies focusing solely on smartphone ownership also exist in the developing and the developed world (Zheng et al., 2014; Kobus et al., 2013; Nowlan, 2013). An online survey of Dutch University students involving 3,132 participants conducted in November 2011 by Kobus et al. (2013) indicated that 67.9% of students owned a smartphone. Contrary to findings of previous studies conducted in the USA (Dahlstrom and Bichsel, 2014; Song and Lee, 2012), this study registered a very low tablet PC ownership of only 10.9 %. Another important finding of this study was that ownership of smartphones was not related to one’s income but this became an important factor in tablet PC ownership. Similarly, a study by Song and Lee (2012) found that the high total cost of ownership (i.e. costs for handsets and monthly data plans) was the main reason why 39% of the respondents did not own a tablet PC.
Another study conducted in China by Zheng et al. (2014) revealed that 86% of college students in that country owned a smartphone, and only 2% of students owned ordinary cell phones without internet browsing features. This study relates to the previous one conducted by Kobus et al. (2013) in that both show high penetration rates of smartphones. The gap that exists between the penetration rates of the two studies could be the result of time difference as the two studies were conducted two to three years apart. Likewise, a study conducted by Nowlan (2013) at the University of Regina in Canada showed that a large portion of the students surveyed (95.4%) used smartphones. iPhone, Blackberry, and Android devices were the most common devices which the respondents owned. Nonetheless, this study is unique in that it was the first study to record smartphone penetration at such high levels. However, the studies did not clearly specify the sampling procedure used other than just stating that the survey was open to all. This perhaps implies that an online questionnaire was used. As already indicated, online questionnaires lead to collection of data from a convenient sample which is not very reliable (Grinnel and Unrau, 2008). Although the response rate was quite high (62%), questions may still be raised about the reliability of the findings.
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