The hidden image of mobile apps: geographic, demographic, and cultural factors in mobile usage
Open accessAbstract
While mobile apps have become an integral part of everyday life, little is known about the factors that govern their usage. Particularly the role of geographic and cultural factors has been understudied. This article contributes by carrying out a large-scale analysis of geographic, cultural, and demographic factors in mobile usage. We consider app usage gathered from 25,323 Android users from 44 countries and 54,776 apps in 55 categories, and demographics information collected through a user survey. Our analysis reveals significant differences in app category usage across countries and we show that these differences, to large degree, reflect geographic boundaries. We also demonstrate that country gives more information about application usage than any demographic, but that there also are geographic and socio-economic subgroups in the data. Finally, we demonstrate that app usage correlates with cultural values using the Value Survey Model of Hofstede as a reference of cross-cultural differences.
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The long-term use of the Carat app could influence participants' behavior.
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Previous studies suggest a relationship between demographic factors, smartphone usage behavior, and depression.
“Previous studies suggest a relationship between demographic factors, smartphone usage behavior, and depression [38,85,86].”
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Peltonen, E., Lagerspetz, E., Hamberg, J., Mehrotra, A., Musolesi, M., Nurmi, P., & Tarkoma, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- University College London (GB)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2018-09-03
- Pages
- 1-12
- OpenAlex
- W2803035186
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 8
- FWCI
- 4.91
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI) (publishedVersion)
- Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (acceptedVersion)
- Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology) (acceptedVersion)
- Cork Open Research Archive (University College Cork, Ireland) (submittedVersion)
- Archivio istituzionale della ricerca (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Academy of Finland (297741)
- Science Foundation Ireland (SFI/12/RC/2289)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Mobile and Web Applications
- Social Sciences › Transportation › Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Technology Adoption and User Behaviour
- Keywords
- mobile app usage, app categories, geographic differences, cultural values, Hofstede cultural dimensions, Android users, demographic factors, cross-cultural comparison, user behavior
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