A Longitudinal Study of Non-Voice Mobile Phone Usage by Teens from an Underserved Urban Community

TL;DR

This longitudinal study investigates non-voice mobile phone usage among teens in an underserved urban community, revealing usage patterns, social functions, and challenges in evaluating mobile usability over time.

Contribution

It provides new insights into long-term mobile usage behaviors in underserved communities and offers guidelines for designing and analyzing similar user studies.

Findings

Usage is highly mobile and location-dependent

Mobile phones serve multiple social purposes

Four factors influence usage evolution

Abstract

We report a user study of over four months on the non-voice usage of mobile phones by teens from an underserved urban community in the USA where a community-wide, open-access Wi-Fi network exists. We instrumented the phones to record quantitative information regarding their usage and location in a privacy-respecting manner. We conducted focus group meetings and interviewed participants regularly for qualitative data. We present our findings on what applications our participants used and how their usage changed over time. The findings highlight the challenges to evaluating the usability of mobile systems and the value of long-term methodologies. Based on our findings, we analyze the unique values of mobile phones, as a platform technology. Our study shows that the usage is highly mobile, location-dependent, and serves multiple social purposes for the participants. Furthermore, we present concrete findings on how to perform and analyze similar user studies on mobile phones, including four contributing factors to usage evolution, and provide guidelines for their design and evaluation.