Comparing Digital Divides in Internet & Mobile Usage: US User, Dropout & Veteran Divides, Study notes of Business Administration

Download Comparing Digital Divides in Internet & Mobile Usage: US User, Dropout & Veteran Divides and more Study notes Business Administration in PDF only on Docsity! Comparing Internet & Mobile Phone Usage : Digital Divides of Usage, Adoption & Dropouts This study was an result of a Survey conducted in the year 2000 to define the potential of Mobile Phone Technology against the Internet through not just the User and Nonusers kind instead the author identified other important digital divides such as Veteran Vs Recent and Dropouts Vs Current Users. His study measures the greater magnitude of importance that the US Communication Policy was unable to identify, through various results analyzed on these three digital divides across the two media. Thus, Internet & Mobile Phone usage level in 2000 were almost same; their users overlap but were not of similar population. Telecommunication Policy Docsity.com Declaration I have written this paper based on the telephone Survey of 2000 in United States and Scientists who researched on this survey so my critics and comments may be similar to the scientist’s statement. Since this complete study is based on the demographic values, logistic regression analysis methods and the actual dimension of derivation which are closer to the author’s decision and conclusion. Intension of writing this paper was to understand and learn the research methods performed by the authors which will be of great help for my Master Program. THIS PAPER WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR ANY PUBLICATIONS OR SALES. Docsity.com Fully connected, Partially Connected, Potentially Connected and Disconnected to Internet found that the disconnected users were only earning half the income of fully connected and they were most less likely to have college education, are more likely blacks, be older, and have smaller households. The above connection oriented study proves that income is one of the potential factor for digital divide in Internet. Another report from UCLA 2000 indicates that 58.6% of nonusers are somewhat likely or very likely to not get access to Internet within a year, this report also displayed a 10.3% of nonusers were Internet Dropouts and their reasons differs from the primary reason of nonusers(don't want it) who were never connected to Internet. Mobile Phone digital Divides: When the term “digital divide” was used in the US, it exclusively refers to the use of Computer which was the opposite way to the rest of the World. In 2002, December 2 on a presentation Jan Servaes, President of EU Consortium of Communication Research addressed the digital divide issue as not a Technological problem but a Social problem. He identified that for many people basic needs and approach to life were not easily integrated with a Computer whereas Mobile phone was able to fulfil this gap through its mobility, emergency utilities, and fast responses. In fact during this study the mobile phone networks coverage were 95% throughout US and the mobile phone subscription drastically increased among women and minorities in the US population. When compared to 1990 where less than 1% of the US population had a mobile phone, this was a booming change. It is also showed that in the developing world, it is often the poorest segment of population who is the earlier adopter of mobile phone technologies. In-spite of Mobile phone reducing the telecommunication odds, when the promised benefits of 3G services on Mobile phone became clearly visible the digital divide of mobile phone technology shifted from users and nonusers to the users having the limited services and advance services. The US policy makers were not concentrated on issues of the Internet digital divides with mobile phone digital divides. Since there were many concerns that can be address equally(if not uniquely) for Mobile phone digital divides with Internet digital divides, as per the study this new technology has not received its due as a tool during this period by researchers and US policy makers. For all the current and future concerns accumulated by the progress of communication technology, this was at-least clear that the mobile phone is an important equipment in overcoming digital divides by creating social and economic capital. Docsity.com Research Questions by author: Based on his data accumulation and overview, he found no simple or precise digital divides between Internet and mobile phone technology. Hence the study considered the three relevant digital divides (users and nonusers, veteran and current users and current and dropout users) for Internet and Mobile phone in the United States as of 2000. 1. To what extent are there digital divides in Internet use and in mobile phone use in 2000? 2. What are the influences on and reasons for these divides? 3. To what extent are the primary digital divides of Internet usage and mobile phone usage similar, that is explained by similar influences? Methods Used for Study: The further results and discussions were based on the data used by the author, which was carried out by the telephone survey conducted in March 2000 and administrated by US commercial survey firms. The structure of survey was designed by the author for his research on this study. Data Samples: Source: Comparing internet and mobile phone usage: digital divides of usage, adoption, and dropouts BY Ronald E. Rice, James E. Katz P 605 Usage of Internet and Mobile phone was measured by author in three ways: where the respondents were current users, Former Users or Never used. Demographic variables included gender, age, income, education, race (only African–American and white non-Hispanic), marital status, children, and work status. Media used for measures include number of letters sent weekly, phone calls made weekly, and e-mail messages sent weekly. Docsity.com Results: Apparent Similarities between Internet and Mobile Phone: From the 1305 respondents, the author found adoption, former and nonusers of these two media were about the same in 2000 that is users and nonusers and the influences on usage are quite similar and the two media are similar in general communication function. The only basic differences in both media were between adopters and non-adopters which imply that both media would have had the similar telecommunication and access policies. Different Usage Category & their relationship to demographic differences: Here the author used four sections of classification to study the differences across these three kinds of digital divides. Relationships among the categories of internet & mobile phone users: The relationship between two media considering the three digital divides (current, former and never users) 43.9% of the 1241 respondents are not belonging to similar category across the two media. So while these two media appear quite similar in terms of combined usage and adoption as of 2000, there are still substantial percentages of respondents who represent different categories of users of the two media, and these differences are statistically greater. Traditional Digital Divide: Nonusers Vs Current Users: Internet nonusers compare to users were more likely to be female, older, have lower income, have less education, have no children and work full-time. Whereas Mobile Phone nonusers compare to users was more likely to be lower income, less education, never married/no partner, not have children, not full-time worker. Former users compare to recent users: Compare to former users recent users are more likely to be female, lower income, have less education, have more children. In the case of mobile phone former users vs current users are more likely to be younger, have less income, have less education, not married/no partner, not full-time worker. Dropouts compare to Current Users: Internet dropouts against current users were more likely to be younger, have lower income, have less education, not married/no partner. Reasons: Time Waste, Too Difficult, Too Expensive, Lost Access, Not interesting and not useful. Docsity.com