Mobile Device Type Substitution
This work addresses the problem of understanding device interactions for mobile ecosystem modeling, but it is incremental as it builds on existing substitution concepts with new data.
The study tackled the problem of limited research on mobile device type substitution by analyzing multidevice usage data from a large US panel, finding that tablets and PCs partially substitute for smartphones, reducing smartphone usage by about 12.5 and 13 hours/month respectively, while also prompting additional usage of about 20 and 57 hours/month respectively.
Mobile users today interact with a variety of mobile device types including smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and others. However research on mobile device type substitution has been limited in several respects including a lack of detailed and robust analyses. Therefore, in this work we study mobile device type substitution through analysis of multidevice usage data from a large US-based user panel. Specifically, we use regression analysis over paired user groups to test five device type substitution hypotheses. We find that both tablets and PCs are partial substitutes for smartphones with tablet and PC ownership decreasing smartphone usage by about 12.5 and 13 hours/month respectively. Additionally, we find that tablets and PCs also prompt about 20 and 57 hours/month respectively of additional (non-substituted) usage. We also illustrate significant inter-user diversity in substituted and additional usage. Overall, our results can help in understanding the relative positioning of different mobile device types and in parameterizing higher level mobile ecosystem models.