Your mobile can define your nature & countries
By ajay at February 21, 2011 | 12:15 pm | Print
What type of phones you carry with you? And what you do with your cell phone? For example, do you like playing games, downloading applications, surfing net or checking emails and social networking sites? Just tell me what you do. And I can predict your nature. Not joking. We have found one interesting survey done by Nokia and University of Cornell.
This survey studied the nature of the person by monitoring their activities on cell phone.
Here is what study says:
Working as a consultant for the Finnish telecomm giant Nokia, Pinch concluded that survey data on app usage from 5,000 smartphone users in 10 countries could be used to create appitypes to help define user profiles.
For example, Pinch said an “appcentric” is an extreme user who uses the mobile phone as their main computing device for anything from data management to playing games.
The “appthusiast” is someone who feels the need to search out and download the latest apps.
The “live wire” downloads a mix of fitness, social and travel apps.
The survey found that “Germans were downloading flashlight and alarm clock apps,” Pinch said, while “Brazilians download lots of music and social networking apps. The Chinese download news apps. South Africans prefer social networking apps. India goes in for business apps.”
“The British are the most apathetic,” said Pinch (who is British), with a quarter of those surveyed admitting to hardly ever using the apps on their device. This skepticism toward apps perhaps comes from Britain’s already strong person-to-person social networks, “such as meeting up in pubs and so on.”
While previous data had been collected on the number of apps users have, there was no global survey of smartphone users, until now.
“I interpreted the data and thought about different profiles of users of smartphones,” Pinch said. “The idea of these appitypes is to think about how people actually use these devices. Some people use phones for social connection, some as a substitute computer — it’s become their main device.”
Smartphone users with lot of apps “become more than just a person. They have new possibilities to do things,” said Pinch, whose band, The Electric Golem, uses an app to replace using a large synthesizer. “When you see someone’s car, you think you can learn something about their identity. The human-machine combination tells you something more about them and their aspirations. The person in combination with his or her phone makes up a new unit, as it were.”
Of course, that new unit is disabled if a network goes down, and some users worry they may be surveilled by GPS-enabled phones. But “at the moment, users perceive the benefits to far outweigh the disadvantages,” Pinch said. “As the cost is coming within reach of many people, farmers in Africa could get weather information and crop prices. One can see all sorts of unexpected benefits in this technology, and users will start to use it in all sorts of unexpected ways.”
Appitypes play into people’s desire to project an identity, Pinch said, and could be of use to developers and users alike.(Cornell University)
Detail definitions:
Well, take a look at the definition of the different appitypes to find out if you’re a ‘Creator’ or more of an ‘Apprentice’!.
APPTHUSIAST – Appthusiasts are energetic and passionate. They are social creatures who like to know about the latest trends. Appthusiasts are rarely without their smartphone, sometimes even taking it to sleep with them!
APPCENTRIC – They are hard working, energetic and productive. They have a lot of contacts, are tech savvy, and know how to make their technology serve them best. While they only download apps occasionally, they frequently use them.
LIVE WIRE – Live Wires are active, down-to-earth people who enjoy technical, outdoor and athletic pursuits. They are reliable and productive and this is reflected in their downloads, which tend to be a mix of health/fitness, social and travel related apps.
CREATOR – These people are creative and imaginative. The creator may be a loner or a team player, but when they socialize they often find themselves the life of the party. They are up on the latest trends and their creative spirit often drives them to bright colored phones, illustrating that they are fun and open minded.(nokia)
