Mobile phone usage involves the mobile phone, the telecommunications system, mobile phone users,
and the adoption and use of the system. Mobile communications is a complex and rapidly changing
industry consisting of the hardware, software, network and business aspects. Mobile phone users are
influenced by demographic, social, cultural and contextual factors that complicate the understanding of
mobile phone usage.
Advances in technology and market competition drive the addition of new services and features. In
contrast, human cognition and attention are more constrained and many users find it difficult to cope with
the cognitive demands of mobile phone technology.
The aim of this study is to develop a model for representing the influence of motivational needs and
cultural factors on mobile phone usage variety. The link between motivational needs and mobile phone
usage variety, the cultural factors that influence mobile phone usage variety, as well as usage spaces as an
approach to representing usage variety, are researched.
The research encompasses a literature study, structured interviews, a pilot study and a survey. The pilot
study and survey yielded data about mobile phone usage of university students under the age of 30 in
South Africa. The results from the statistical analysis were triangulated with the findings of the literature
study and the observations made about mobile phone usage during this two-year period. A final survey was
conducted to verify the model.
The contribution of this study is a mobile phone technology usage model (MOPTUM) for representing
the motivational and cultural factors that influence mobile phone usage variety in such a way that users can
use the model to express their mobile phone usage needs in non-technical terms while marketers and
designers can use the model to convert the expressed user needs into the features required.
MOPTUM draws on concepts and models from sociology, computer-supported cooperative work,
human-computer interaction and technology adoption models from the field of marketing. MOPTUM
verifies some existing findings on mobile phone usage and then integrates and extends these existing
models to provide a new model for understanding the motivational and cultural factors that influence
mobile phone usage variety. / Computing / Ph. D. (Computer Science)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/2149 |
| Date | 30 November 2006 |
| Creators | Van Biljon, Judith Arnoldine |
| Contributors | Marsden, G., Kotze, P |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (x, 296 leaves) |
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