Use of smartphone applications and its impacts on urban life: A survey and random forest analysis in Japan. (August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zong, Weiyan; Zhang, Junyi
• Is Part Of: Sustainable cities and society. Volume 49(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-08
• Subjects: Smartphone applications -- Changes in life -- Questionnaire survey -- Random forest approach -- Life-oriented approach -- Japan; Sustainable urban development -- Periodicals; Sustainable buildings -- Periodicals; Urban ecology (Sociology) -- Periodicals; 307.76
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2019.101589
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2210-6707

Abstract

Highlights: Effects of smartphone application use on urban life are examined comprehensively. 45.4% of respondents experienced life changes after use of smartphone applications. Use of smartphone applications worsens people's QOL in some ways. Effects of built environment are larger than those of smartphone applications. Impacts on urban life are complexed with interdependencies across life changes. Abstract: This study investigates how various smartphone applications are used, and how that use leads to changes in various aspects of urban life. Different types of applications and the scope of their impacts on urban life are captured based on a life-oriented approach. Data were collected via an online survey of 1000 residents living in different cities of Japan in December 2017. It was found that 75.1% of respondents owned a smartphone and used 3.5 applications on average. Among the users of smartphone application(s), 45.4% experienced at least one life change. Applying a random forest approach, this study examined the relative influence of application usage on urban life as compared to built-environment, individual, and household attributes, as well as interdependencies across life changes, by building 37 forests with 37000 trees. It was revealed that applications of "game", "photo, video", "utility, tool, efficiency", "shopping", "healthcare, sports, beauty", "touring", "education", "book, comic", and "navigation, and map" induce changes in work, study, daily trip making, talks between family members, time use, sleeping, expenditure, physical exercise, and shopping in a complicated manner, even though the built environment attributes are the most important predictors to the life changes as a whole.