Your Smartphone, my Smartphone - How Smartphone Ownership determines Social Group Affiliation

Abstract

Smart mobile devices have arrived in the center of our society and provide multiple support in users’ daily life. With the mass adoption of smart mobile devices social life changed dramatically. In which way the used smartphone has impact on the perceived group affiliation is not investigated yet. This paper provides a first step in observing the membership of users to their smartphone group. The decision regarding the purchase of a smartphone has extensive consequences of the technological future of users. They lock-in to a system which determines multiple future decisions. The chosen system describes an important technological path dependency. This paper presents a study investigating the rivalry between different smartphone groups. The results show differences between the levels of identification of users with their smartphone manufacturers. Moreover, the results show that for smartphone users it depends on their smartphone manufacturer, which factors are important for a rivalry.