Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Today we bring you the second part of the “Smart(phone) Relations” research which was conducted by the Huawei Consumer Business Group and Ipsos agency in 12 countries (Croatia, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Slovenia). The goal of the research was to gain an insight into the habits of users when it comes to their usage of smartphones throughout the day.
Below you can find a wealth of interesting data, along with the comments by psychologist Igor Mikloušić.
Love affair with a mobile phone
Approximately one quarter of all users have said they cannot live without a mobile phone. 67% of all users see their mobile phone as a device that allows them more freedom. 92% of all users say they love their mobile phone and 92% see mobile phone as a very useful assistant in life. 58% of all users mainly use their phone as a device to connect. 76% of all users think their mobile phone is worth every euro spent for it and 17% say they could not give up their phone.
When mobile phone is much more than just a mobile phone
Half of all users agree they feel uncomfortable when they leave their home without a mobile phone. 20% of them feel less safe when they do not carry a mobile phone with them. 64% of all users think their mobile phone plays an important role in their life and 44% of them agree they are dependent upon their mobile phone. 62% of users also think they spend too much time engaging with their mobile phone and 57% of them try to cut time they spend using the phone.
Mikloušić comments: “One of the worse traps of entertaining technologies which fulfil our current needs is that we are in a way unable to control it. Applications like Facebook are designed to trigger the need to refresh it over and over again as we do not want to miss the next informational ‘candy’ that awaits after the next refresh. In a way it’s like the situation where evolution hasn’t prepared us to survive in a world where there’s too much food and therefore we are fighting with obesity and appetite control. The evolution also didn’t prepare us for the overload of information. News from our friends, family and other important people in our lives are very important to us. It seems this will be the biggest challenge in the future, how to control the need for information. It’s very possible technology will jump in once more. Special applications for productivity might be developed. They will be able to turn off certain functions of a mobile phone for a limited period of time to help us focus and be more productive.”
But mobile phone is not all bad. According to this analysis results mobile phones connect us. Almost four fifths of all users say their mobile phone helps them stay in contact with closest friends and family members. 53% say they meet new people with the help of a mobile phone. More than half of all users (59%) think mobile phone is an important device when love is in question especially at the beginning of a relationship. 85% of all users see mobile phone as a very helpful when long distance relationships are in question.
77% of all users use their mobile phone to stay connected with their friends, 41% use it when searching for a new partner, 65% for maintaining their relationship, 52% for building a relationship with their partner and 50 % of all users use their mobile phone for organising their family life. Only 16 % of users that are in a relationship say they have contents in their phone they would never show to their partner and 23% of parents say there are contents on their phones they would not show their children. The numbers are a bit higher when friends and other member of the family are in question. 45% of users would keep certain contents on their phones away from their friends and 50% from their other family members. It’s not a surprise that 53% of all users say they would keep certain contents on their phones hidden from their parents.
Love and a mobile phone
Husbands, wives and partners most commonly use communication via their mobile phone to maintain relationship (67%), they are followed by parents (60%), same gender friends (38%), brothers and sisters (28%) and children (21%).
69% of all users have confirmed mobile phone number is still the one traditional personal contact information given away when meeting a new person whom they want to develop a closer relationship with. 45% of them use social networks to develop and maintain a contact with a new person and only 10% use email. Almost one quarter of respondents met their current partner through friends or family and 10% met their partner through one of the mobile applications specialised for dating which is nowadays more than through traditional home parties for example. Only 13% of couples met at work or in school.
34% of users call their partner few times a day and 17% at least once per day. Much more common is communication via text messaging. 70% of users send more than one text message every day and 11% send at least one a day.
Mikloušić comments: “For a majority of people life is a social activity. The need to care for family and descendants, meet new people and enter in relationships, maintain our love life and friendships has been with us since very beginnings of mankind. It is amazing to observe how technologies have developed in the past few decades. From the times of primitive tools people now use communication tools we could not have only imagined even just decades ago. But despite all this advanced technologies it seems we are still the same as our ancestors. We have the same needs, lusts, greed, fears and joys which we carried from stone to space age.”
52% of users admit that mobile phones triggered disputes because of exaggeration or inappropriate situations in which their partner used a mobile phone. On the other hand, 48% say that reason of a dispute was non-usage of a mobile phone – missed calls or unanswered messages.
Despite the fact that mobile phones are very personal, not everyone treats them in a same way. 52% of users save numbers in their contact list under full name and 25% use just a surname. 28% say that they use phrase ‘I love you’ in mobile communication and 18% use ‘kiss’ emoji. 58% of respondents send this kind of love messages via web chat and 31% via short messaging.
If you think sending naked pictures is reserved for Hollywood celebrities you are wrong as 15% of Croatian users of mobile phones send them. 58% say they have flirted via text messaging and 23% sent messages with sexual content. When Croatians confess love 31% use messages and 58% use apps for communication.
Smartphones are very much in use when two are trying to keep a long distance relationship. 56% of respondents in a long distance relationship send flirt messages and 54% use mobile phones for long phone conversations. 25% of them send intimate messages, 40% make regular video calls, 25% send nudes and 13% use their device for phone sex.
Mikloušić comments: “Many people are involved in a long distance relationships nowadays. Such relationships are more common among students. We would assume long distance relationships are destined to fail but research shows they can be equally fulfilling as traditional relationships. To overcome physical distance, couples use technology to fight loneliness and lack of intimacy. They use mobile communication to share emotions and experiences what helps them to deepen their connection. This is what this research is revealing. We have grabbed the chance to share emotions and maintain relationships with those closest to us through images, texts and sound with both our hands.”
