Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) had been commissioned by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (SKMM) to conduct a survey, The Adoption, Appropriation & Impact of Mobile Phones Among Malaysian Society, with funding by the SKMM Spectrum Research Collaboration Programme.

The term “adoption” refers to why a user adopts a technology and why they choose a specific make and model. “Appropriation” goes deeper to undersatnd how they adopted the technology and adapted it to satisfy their different purposes and how the use of the technology – in this case a mobile phone --  as intended by the designer, is actually used by end-users.

As for social impact, the survey looks into the both the positive and negative social impact of mobile phones, both intended and unintended.

The study is headed by Prof. Dr. Rose Alinda Alias, dean of UTM School of Graduate Studies, Skudai, Johor in partnership with Nor Zairah Addul Rahim, Assc. Prof. Dr. Naomie Salim, Assc. Prof. Dr. Azizah Abdul Rahman and Dr. Norafida Ithnin of UTM in collaboration with Assc. Prof Dr. Jennie Carroll of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia, Assc. Prof. Dr. Nor Shariza Abdul Karim, Dr. Norshidah Mohamed and Dr. Murni Mahmud of International Islamic University Malaysia (UIAM) and and Dr. Shamsul Anuar Mokhtar of Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL).

We had attended the lectures by Dr. Rose Alinda and on The Impact of Wireless Technology (ie wireless broadband) on Malaysian Society by Associate Prof. Datin Dr. Norizan Abdul Razak of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi at the SKMM Spectrum Research Lecture Series at SKMM Auditorium in Cyberjaya on 21 August, with Associate Prof. Dr. Nik Rushdie Hassan of University of Minnesota as facilitator.

We later attended the Malaysian Mobile Phone Strategy Workshop organised by UTM, RMIT, UIAM and UniKL at the Hilton Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on 17 September and participated in its proceedings, and as the survey was on-going at the time, the findings presented here are interim.

We'll report on Dr. Norizan's findings on wireless broadband adoption later.

The mobile phone survey's objectives are to identify the criteria for adoption of mobile phones by different demographic cohorts of Malaysian society, to understand the appropriation process of mobile phones by them, to understand their perception of the positive and negative impact of mobile phones by them and to recommend appropriate mobile phone strategies and policies.

The survey methodology involves qualitative methods such as interviews of cohort groups such as workers at a fixed workplace, mobile workers, postgraduate students, undergraduates, senior citizens, housewives and non-users; hold focus groups on the adoption, appropriation and impact of mobile phones and analysis using the Nvivo8 method.

It also involves a computer-aided telephone interview (CATI) conducted by trained interviewers at the SKMM's  CATI centre of users of mobile phones as of December 2008 who were aged 13 years and above who understood either English or Malay.

In the interim report we have, 1,710 successful interviews on adoption and appropriation had been conducted nationwide out of 2,000 samples drawn, with the questions based on Carroll et al's 2002 work with several sets of simple questions on adoption and appropriation. Analysis was conducted with descriptive statistics and parametric tests on different cohort groups with adoption and appropriation variables.

At the same time, 1,708 successful surveys out of 2,000 had been conducted on impact, with questions derived from those used by Khushu and Keating in their study of positive and negative impact of mobilephones with an analysis strategy based on Principal Component Anaysis on overall positive and negative impact, and anaysis of differences on different cohort groups using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

These findings are interim as not all 2,000 had been surveyed at the time.

Qualitative findings

According to their qualitative findings on adoption and approriation, the top reasons for first-time use of mobile phones are the ease with which they enable family members to keep in touch with each other and in touch with friends, and the ease with which phones they enabled them to manage their lives.

For example, a worker at a fixed location said, “It acts as my daily assistant in my work and tasks,” while a senior citizen said, “it helps me a lot in the management of my personal matters.”

As for phone brand, a fixed worker liked Samsung phones for their user interface and functions, Motorola for their user-friendliness and Nokia for their durability, while a mobile worker liked Nokia for the easy availability of phone and spare parts, and their simplicity.

The reasons for appropriation – or purpose of use of mobile phones include social management, personal management, security & safety.

For example, a husband had video calls with his wife when he wanted to see her face, while a postgraduate student had video calls with her husband when she was out-of-town,

A senior citizen used his phone to send SMS or call his friends, make announcements of meetings and invitations without having to go knocking ion every door.

As for personal management, a fixed worker uses his phone as a respository for photos and videos, a mobile workers to keep SMS for reference, while an undergraduate student uses it as an alarm clock, to remind about lectures and birthdays.

As for safety and security, a fixed workers uses its GPS function to know where he is, especially when in unfamiliar territory and as a navigation aid, while a mobile worker uses it to call his wife if he has left something valuable at home and a housewife said it makes her feel safer as she could always call for help.

The study on the impact of mobile phones was categoriesed into four positive and four negative factors.

The positive factors are Connected and Informative Society, Culturally Innovative Society, Productive Society and Participative Society. Negative factors are Disruption of Established Patterns of Communication and Behaviour, Criminal and Anti-Social Behaviour, Financial Recklessness and Addition and Stress of Social Relationships.

Qualitative positive impact includes being able to keep in touch, receive religious-type SMS reminders and news, contact people to congratulate or encourage them, to be able to obtain Islamic ringtones and ringtones for other occasions, it increases productivity by enabling access to e-mail on the phone when out of the office, it contributes to social participation throughcollaboration and the exchange of opinions and ideas.

Negative impacts are annoying disruption by anonymous callers and inconsiderate people who talk loudly into their phone on buses or in public places; the use of phones to spread rumours, distribute offensive pictures, take pictures of people in the toilet and there are strong objection of the use of phones to watch pornography; the tendency to lose control of phone usage costs; the obsessive use of phones, even in lecture halls by students with too much time on their hands, the use of phones to send SMS announcing divorce, to spread gossip which can damage relationships between co-workers and members of the family.

Quantitative findings

The results of quantitative findings get more interesting. Its studies of adoption and appropriation are based on six cohort groups – namely, age, gender, ethnicity, employment status, marital status and income.

Interum results found that 56.2% of users were male versus 43.8% female, 40.1% were aged 20 to 30 years, followed by 19.2% aged 31 to 40 years, with the smallest group being 55 years and above comprising 6.3%.

By ethnicity, 66% were Malay, 20.2% Chinese, 7.3% Indian and 6.5% others. 50.6% of users earn between RM1,000 and RM2,999 per month, followed by 30.9% who earn under RM1,000, 8.6% earn between RM3,000 and RM4,999, while 5.6% earn RM5,000 and above.  The term "others" here refers to minority Malaysian ethnic groups besides the major Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicities.

As for employment status, 29.1% are the “support” group (whatever that means), 20.9% are students, 18.9% are self-employed, 15.1% unemployed, 11.9% professional and 4.1% retirees.

Ease to communicate topped reasons for using phones at 89.1%, followed by 33.9% for ease to manage their lives, 19.9% for work, 10.3% due to social influence, 2.5% due to phone functions, 0.8% for security and 0.2% for other reasons.

Chinese are less likely to use phones for ease to manage their lives, while professional are significantly higher. Those aged 31 to 55 years are more likely to use phones for work, while others in this category are the employed and the married.

Social use on phone adoption decreases with age, with a higher percentage of teenagers – ie 13 to 19 years adopting phones for this reason, followed by those aged 20 to 30 years and progressively lower with older age groups.

Among phone brands, Nokia was the favourite with 66% across all age groups, followed by Sony-Ericsson at 21%, Motorola at 4%, Samsung at 3% and others at 6%. Of non-Nokia users, 50.9% are aged from 20 to 30 years, 61% are single, 43.8% are Chinese and 31.5% Malay.

Ease of use is the top reason to buy Nokia at 51.8%, followed by performance at 26.7%, function at 25.3%, brand at 16.2%, price at 14.5% and features at 13.2%.

On the other hand features came out tops among non-Nokia users at 38.5%, followed by 32.9 % ease of use, 23.1% features, 15.8% price and 10.6% image.

The top five reasons for choice of brand are 45.4% for ease of use, 20.8% for performance – ie battery life, memory capacity, speed and stability, 16.5% for features – namely, design, size, colour and so on, 14.9% for its price and 13.3% for brand name. With the exception of price, all other reasons to buy Nokia or non-Nokia phones varied significantly.

Function and features figure significantly in the 13 to 30 years group's choice of brand, while features are the only significant factor amongst those aged 31 to 40 years and social influence amongst those aged above 55.

The four lowest reasons are 7% social influence, 5% personal image, 4% marketing and advertising and 3.8% others reasons. Well, this should give pause to advertisers who pour milllions into advertising and promotion.

Maxis is the top choice of opertator with 52%, followed by Celcom with 38%, DiGi with 22% and U Mobile with 1%.  Maxis is preferred across all age groups, amongst the younger age groups and amongst singles. Celcom is more popular among older age groups, among Malay and other ethnic groups, while DiGi is more popular amongst Indian and Chinese ethnic groups.

These percentage points add up to over 100% because 29% of those surveyed have more than one phone, and 61% of them do so to seperate different purposes, such as work and personal use, while 23% do so for backup.

Of those with more than one phone, 64.8% are aged between 20 and 40 years, predominantly male, employed and with a monthly income of RM5,000 or more.

Appropriation

The use of the different functions of mobile phones are characteried according to age, gender, ethnicity, employment status, marital status and income, and besides voice, the top five uses of mobile phones are 88% for SMS, 48% as a camera, 40% as an alarm clock, 36% as a music player and 33% as a calculator, while the bottom five uses are 9% for note taking, 9% as a recorder, 9% as a media player, 8% for watching videos and 7% for speed dial.

Ninety six percent of users across all cohort groups uses their phone for social management, while other uses vary across cohort groups.

Significant use of phones for personal management is amongst those from 13 to 40 years, predominantly female, professional, students, high-income earners and the married.

Those aged from 13 to 20 and 30 to 40 years , workers and students, those earning from RM1,000 to RM5,000 a month and singles predominantly use it to get assistance. Those aged from 13 to 30 years, are predominantly female, students, monthly income below RM3,000 and single tended to use it for leisure and entertainment.

Those aged from 20 to 55 years, predominantly female, professional, the support group and singles use it for work management. The 13 to 40 age group, professionals, students, those earning above RM5,000 a month and singles tend to use it for information management. While use for society participation was across all cohort groups, ethnic Chinese use of phones for this purpose was significantly low.

By cohort group, teenagers use their phones' functions for very opposite reasons than older groups. Teenagers tend to use them more for pleasure and entertainment, while retirees (over 55 years) use them for basic communications.

The middle-aged (working adults) use phones for their work and buy phones acording to their earning power.

Most cohort groups change their phone due to damage or loss, though this practice was higher amongst working adults but significantly lower amongst teenagers, while retirees are less likely to change their phones due to damage.

Males tend to buy phones significantly more for work, while females are more likely to get phones as gifts than males. Males tended to choose their phones according to brand and functionality, while females are more likely to buy a brand due to social influence.

Males tend to buy more than one phone, use them more for work and change them due to insufficient functions and tend to use sophisticated functions such as Bluetooth more than females who tended to use its simpler functions such as for SMS and as an alarm clock, for leisure and personal management.

Students tend to choose their phone brands due to function and social influence and image, while professionals are more concerned with their features which suit their interest and work. Retirees tend not to be concerned about these, most probbaly because they are given a phone for communication.

The rest of the cohorts in this category use most of the phone's functions, except for the retirees,while students use them the most.

Professionals use phones significantly more for personal use, work and information management, students use them more for personal information management, for getting assistance, for leisure and entertainment, while retirees use them much less than the others.

By employment status, 45.8% of professionals use their phones as an alarm clock, followed by 44.6% of the support group and 41.4% of students. Professionals also  tend to use non-Nokia phones, while many phone functions investigated are used by the low and middle-income group.

As for functions used by different ethnic groups, Malays come out tops with 91.6% usage of SMS, followed by others at 90.2%, 80% Chinese and 79.8% Indian. 30.9% of Malays use MMS, followed by 26.8% of others, 25.8% of Indians and 18% of Chinese. 25% of others used phones as a radio, followed by 23.2% of Malays, 17.17 of Indians and 15.1% of Chinese, while 21.8% of Indians use it for reminders, followed by 20.2% of Malay, 12.8% of Chinese and 8.9% of others.

Singles are significantly higher users of these functions and are more prone to change their phone than married couples.

So different cohort groups use their phones in different ways and for different purposes, and besides their contribution to policy developmentand regulation, these findings are expected to contribute to theoretical knowledge in wireless communication use, with the application and conceptualisation of a technology adoption and an appropriation framework, ad the results of this study may serve as a mechanism to guide the development of wireless phone applications and design.

Positive Impact

On the positive impact on a Connected & Informative Society,  90% said their phone lets them get involved with activities with their family and friends, 75% have more friends and contacts since using a mobile phone, 72% said it gave them more social freedom than before, 65% said it lets them keep up with current issues and information, and 60% said it gives them convienient access to online information.

On Participative Society, 34% use their phone to provide opinions on social issues in newspapers, polls and so on, 25% said it enables them to participate with TV and radio programmes including reality shows and 22% said they use their phones to participate in social and political activities involving political groups and in non-political activities such as sports.

On Productive Society, 56% said phones enable them to improve their work performance, while 395 said it lets then generate more income.

On Culturally Innovative Society, 72% said SMS, MMS and 3G let them be more creative in their communication and activities, 75% use their phones to connect with family or friends through sharing of jokes, advice and so on, and 58% said they use unique grammar and smilies in their messages.

Negative Impact

On the negative impact in terms of Disruption on Established Paterns of Communication and Behaviour, 62% had been interrupted or disturbed through inappropriate use of mobile phones whilst in mosques, cinemas, etc. 58% said that written communication skills had deteriorated through use of abbreviations and other new forms of text messages and 56% said that on many occassions, meetings, lectures and so on had been disrupted by their own or others' mobile phone use.

On Financial recklessness, 36% overspent their budget on mobile phone bills, while 25% sometimes experienced finacial problems due to mobile phone expenses.

On Addiction and Stress on Social relationships, 29% said they sometimes find themselves occupied on the phone when they should be doing other things, 27% said they spend a great deal of time speaking on their phone at the expense of those around them, and 23% had on occassions been threatened due to their phone use.

On Criminal and Anti-Social  Behaviour, 52% said they know of cases where mobile phones were use to threaten, harass, blackmail and so on, 51% know of phones used in activities which undermine the law, 50% know of cases where phones used as a threat to social integration – such as to spread rumours, instigate racial, religious or other kinds of unrest, and 48% know of phones used for immoral activities such as gambling, prostitution and so on.

On gender and positive impact, males scored significantly higher tham females in terms of Connected and Informative Society and in Productive Society.

By age group those aged 31 to 40 years make the highest impact on Productive Society, while teenagers (13 to 19 years old) make the lowest. However teenagers and those 20 to 30 years make the biggest impact on a Culturally Innovative Society, while those above 55 years make the least. Those above 55 years make the least impact on Disruption of Established Patterns of Communication and Behaviour, while all the other age groups make about the same. Teenagers experience the most Addiction and Stress on Social relationships, while those aged 41 to 55 and above experience the least. Once again, teenagers are most prone to Financial Recklessness, while those above 55 years, the least.

On etnicity and impact, Malays and Other races make the highest impact on Connected and Informative Society, while the Chinese make the least. Other races are most involved in Participative Society, while Chinese and Indians are the least. Malays and other races participate most in Culturally Innovative Society, while Chinese and Indians are the least. Malays and Indians are most involved in Criminal and Anti-Social Behaviour, while other races are the least. Malays are most affected by Disruption of Established Patterns of Communication and Behaviour, while the Chinese are the least. Chinese are most affected by Addiction and Stress on Social relationships, while Indians are the least, and Malays and Indians are most prone to Financial recklessness, while Chinese are the least.

On marital status and impact, the married have the most impact on Productive Society, while singles, the least. However, singles make the biggest impact on Culturally Innovative Society while the married make the least. Likewise for Addiction and Stress on Social relationships and Financial recklessness.

On employment status and impact, professionals and retirees have the most impact on Connected & Informative Society, while the unemployed have the least. The self-employed have the highest impact on both Participative Society and Productive Society, while students have the least on both counts.

Professionals have the biggest impact on both Criminal and Anti-Social Behaviour and on Disruption of Established Patterns of Communication and Behaviour, while the unemployed and retirees have the least impact on both.

Students are most responsible for both Culturally Innovative Society and face Addiction and Stress on Social relationships the most, while retirees have the least affect in both cases.

Students are most prone to Financial recklessness, while professionals are the least.

Lastly, on impact by income groups, those earning under RM1,000 per month have the most impact on Participative Society, while those earning RM5,000 and above have the least, and this involvement declines steadily with higher income.

The tables are turned in the case of Productive Society, where the biggest impact is by those earning RM5,000 and above, sliding downwards to those earning less than RM1,000 who have the least. Likewise, those earning RM5,000 and above ha dthe most impact on Disruption of Established Paterns of Communication and Behaviour, while those earning under RM1,000 have the least.

Those earning between RM1,000 and RM4,999 impact Culturally Innovative Society the most, while those arning above RM5,00 and above have the least. Those earning between RM3,00 and RM5,000 impact Criminal and Anti-Social Behaviour the most, while those earning under RM1,000, the least.

Those earning between RM1,000 and RM3,000 are most impacted by Addiction and Stress on Social relationships, while other income groups are about the same. Those earning under RM1,000 are most impacted by Financial Recklessness while those earning from RM3,000 to RM,5000 are the least.

Further details on activities and lectures organised by SKMM Spectrum Research are available at its Spectrum.My Research Portal at  www.spectrumresearch.com.my.