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Emotional Factors for Mobile Business Success - 6 July 2007
by Jared Braiterman PhD and Yue Yu
Read this article in Chinese (translated by one of the authors: Yue Yu)
China, the world’s most populous consumer markets, offers valuable insights into technology trends that are shaping how the world interacts with information communication technology. We have presented this thesis to leading internet, design and computer companies, including Adobe, eBay, Fuji Xerox, and Philips Design as part of our open-source, multi-year Mobile China ethnography.
Technology audiences are always interested to learn more about advanced technology and new features, as if those were the central indicators of technology change. They do not expect to hear about the role of emotion, meaning and identity in new media adoption and championing.
How do emotion, meaning and identity shape the design and rapid adoption of mobile devices and services? China is a wonderful place to study this topic for a number of reasons:
- Chinese youth have access to technology and consumer goods that were unimaginable one generation ago and even ten years ago;
- Chinese mobile phone users have passionately adopted low-tech mobile data services such as SMS quicker than in developed countries such as the United States;
- Just as many emerging markets have leapfrogged the landline phone in favor of the mobile phone, we believe that China and other developing countries will leapfrog the PC in favor of the mobile phone as more services become available in the coming years.
The statistics for mobile telephone use in China are staggering: 460 million mobile customers, 132 million internet users and 1.3 billion citizens. Hundreds of millions more Chinese citizens are expected to gain access to mobile phones in the next years.
During the fall of 2005, we conducted a pilot video ethnography in which we asked twenty-eight youth and one school teacher to talk about kids and telephones: how they chose them, how they use them, and what they expect phones will be like in the future. We interviewed participants in three locations: the Central Academy of Fine Arts; outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant; and a middle school in northwest Beijing. The youth aged twelve to twenty-four responded to our questions and told stories about their mobile phones.
Emotional factors rank high when youth talk about choosing and using their mobile phones. There was an interesting contrast between youth’s nonchalance about this “practical” device and the deeply personal and social meanings created through phone ownership and practice. While Chinese parents, like those in many locations, support phone ownership as a way of keeping kids safe, the youth talk about issues of identity, fashion and emotion. Viewed from the youth’s perspective, phone ownership becomes a public expression of new identities created through new patterns of consumption and display.
In describing their phones, Beijing youth spoke of individuality, companionship, and identity. Youth used emotional phrases such as “a good dependable old friend,” “close to me,” “intimate,” “all about me,” and “it is like me.” The passion in describing how they chose their phone shows that making voice calls and sending and receiving text messages were not main considerations. Instead, the phone is described as an almost animate object that gives life meaning.
Youth talked about how quickly what seems fashionable can become old and tired. One design student told us, “At the time I bought it, I thought it was pretty, but not anymore.” For her, six months made an exciting possession something she was ready to replace. For many, there is a desire for the new. One youth said that his mobile phone should be changed because it is too old, not because it is unusable. However, the design student proudly stated her desire for retro telephone styles, specifically the “da ge da” (literally “big brother” giant handsets of the 1990s that few could own). She would like an antique phone now, despite its limited functions.
Moreover, Chinese youth talked about shapes, sizes and colors that reflect their personality, instead of desired functions when choosing their mobile phone.
“I don’t like mobile phones that are too small. I prefer larger (ones) with more angles and a little more masculine.”
“It fits me, because it’s red.”
“I didn’t care that the sales guy said it’s a boy’s telephone handset.”
The social relationships youth have with each other, their parents and teachers are impacted by this ringing, beeping and personal technology friend. Mobile technology fosters intimate relationships between youth with their close friends and allows a form of direct communication not available to earlier generations of landline users. Romance remains a special and privileged sphere of communication:
“She uses the phone more when she has a boyfriend.”
“When I had a boyfriend, I used to call more than 10 times a day. Now I make one call, or less.”
Different expectations around romantic relationships also highlight how the phone is not simply a communication device but a medium with which to enact inter-personal dynamics. As a boy said with considerable frustration, “my girlfriend is always texting me and asking me where I am. When I am busy and she knows where I am, and she still asks where I am.” In this situation, his girlfriend is not seeking information about where her boyfriend is; she wants to show that she is missing him. Friends often text each other when they are bored by asking what are you doing. While framed as a question, this communication is less about exchanging information and more about a desire for connection and virtual co-presence.
At the same time, as the teacher we interviewed stated, parents can use mobile phones to easily track where their kids are. Since almost every Chinese person under age 30 is a single child, the mobile phone represents a vital link between concerned parents and their children, and between single children and their closest peers.
In summary, in contrast to the expectations of many of our technology clients, we have found in our research that youth discourse about telephones focuses much more heavily on emotions rather than technology and features. The implications for designers of mobile devices and services is to focus more on the human side of this emerging technology, new youth identities, and popular desire for entertainment, fashion and companionship.
You can view our pilot study video at www.jaredresearch.com/mobilechina/video/index.html
For more information, please visit our website Giant Ant (http://www.giantant.com), or contact Jared Braiterman PhD via jared@giantant.com.
Comments made
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NG
I think it is well known, at least in other research fields, that surface-level answers to direct questionning are to be taken lightly. What people say is most of the time meaningless because they try to provide answers that make sense to them. Real answers lie much deeper in their minds.
Professional Ethic Police
I am sure that all these people have signed a consent form that said they accepted to have a video of them exposed to the public?
The problem with these new improvised researchers is that by not following (not even being aware of) basic rules of professional ethics, they hurt all research professionals.