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The purpose of this study is to explore and identify the privacy concerns of smartphone app users pertinent to app usage.

Adopting a qualitative phenomenological approach, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with app users to explore the app users' privacy concerns.

Credibility concerns, unauthorised secondary use and vulnerability concerns are the three major privacy concerns of app users, under which these concerns have sub-concerns, i.e. popularity, privacy policy, stalking, data sharing, hacking and personal harm.

The findings are useful to app marketers, app developers and app stores. App marketers, app developers and app stores can use the findings to understand and properly address app users' privacy concerns, thereby increasing the apps usage.

By exploring the privacy concerns of app users, the authors' study extends the literature and provides a theoretical development of individuals' privacy concerns in the context of a widely used technology, i.e. smartphone applications. Accordingly, this study contributes to the consumer privacy literature.

Understanding user behavior is increasingly critical for information security in the use of smartphones. There is, however, lack of empirical studies about the behavior of smartphone users for information security in China. The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical analysis of the behavior of smartphone users in China in relation to information security.

A review of the related literature is conducted, leading to the development of a questionnaire for investigating the behavior of smartphone users. An online survey of the smartphone users in China is conducted. The collected data are analyzed with the use of descriptive analysis and Pearson’s chi-square test to better understand the behavior of smartphone users on information security.

The paper shows that there are serious concerns about information security in the use of smartphones in China including the ignorance of security information in downloading and using applications, inadequate phone settings, inappropriate enabling of add-on utilities and lack of proper disaster recovery plans. The study also reveals that there is a significant difference between different groups of users on information security in smartphone use.

This paper is based on a purposeful sample of smartphone users in China. It is exploratory in nature.

The paper can lead to a better understanding of the behavior of smartphone users and information security in China and provide relevant government departments and institutions with useful information for developing appropriate strategies and policies and designing specific training programs to improve information security in the smartphone use.

This paper is the first of this kind to collect quantitative data from users in China for better understanding the behavior of smartphone users on information security. It provides insight towards the adoption of various measures for information security from the perspective of smartphone users in China.

For a good number of Indians, their smartphone is their first digital computing device. They have less experience in dealing with the Internet-enabled device and hence less experience in handling security threats like malware as compared to users of other countries who have gone through the learning curve of handling such security threats using other Internet-enabled devices such as laptop and desktop. Because of this, the inexperienced Indian smartphone user may be vulnerable to Internet-related security breaches, as compared to the citizens of developed economies. Hence, it is essential to understand the attitude, behaviour and security practices of smartphone users in India. Limited research is available about the security behaviour of smartphone users in India as the majority of research in this domain is done outside India.

In this empirical study, the researchers identified 28 cybersecurity behaviours and practices through a survey of relevant literature. An online survey of identified cybersecurity behaviours and practices was administered to 300 smartphone users. Frequency analysis of the respondent data was done to understand the adoption of recommended cybersecurity behaviours and practices. Pearson’s chi-square with 5% level of significance has been used to test the hypotheses. Post hoc analysis with Bonferroni correction was conducted for statistically significant associations.

Overall, the respondents did not exhibit good cybersecurity behaviour. Respondents have adopted some of the most popular security features of the smartphone such as the use of screen lock. However, respondents have not adopted or are not aware of the technical security controls such as encryption and remote wipe. Statistically significant differences were found between the cybersecurity behaviour and practices and independent variables such as gender, age, mobile operating system (OS) and mother tongue. Respondents reported high level of motivation to protect their device and data, whereas they reported moderate level of threat awareness and the ability to protect to their device and data. Results of the comparative analysis with a similar study in China and the USA are also reported in this study.

The main limitations of this study are as follows: the respondents' perceptions about their cybersecurity behaviours and practices were measured as opposed to their actual behaviours and practices and the generalizability of the study is limited because the sample size is small as compared to the total number of smartphone users in India.

The findings of this study may be useful for the design of effective cybersecurity prevention and intervention programs for general smartphone users of India.

This study provides an insight about cybersecurity behaviour of smartphone users in India. To the knowledge of the researchers, this is the first study to collect such quantitative data of smartphone users in India for a better understanding of the cybersecurity behaviours and practices. This study identified 28 cybersecurity behaviours and practices, which smartphone users should follow to improve cybersecurity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of smartphone apps as tools to promote healthy eating behaviors, especially when ordering food and drinks in restaurants. This paper also aims to develop a conceptual model based on literature to test users' intention to use smartphone apps as tools to promote healthy eating habits.

The article is written based on a synthesis of previous research in this area.

Smartphone apps are innovative channels for delivering individual health behavior changes. They offer a range of services that can improve the daily habits of their users. Smartphone apps allow users to keep up with their diets, exercise routines, and overall health. Based on an extensive review, this paper develops a conceptual model that includes the precursors of actual usage of smartphone apps that may assist in building healthy eating habits.

Restaurants are advised to consider developing apps that includes nutritional facts about their menu items. These apps could be used for both consumer education and marketing efforts. The conceptual framework developed in this paper suggests that perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, self-efficacy and social norms are the antecedents of intention to use these apps.

This is one of the first studies in the foodservice and nutrition fields that looks at the smartphone apps' impact on healthy eating. It offers practical implications for restaurateurs and smartphone app developers. In addition, this is one of the first papers that offers a model to test smartphone users' intention to use smartphone apps when ordering food and drinks in restaurants.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a balanced study group consisting of 152 participants interact with, operate, customize, and control their smartphone applications.

This work uses a qualitative research methodology involving an online user study questionnaire, supported by e-mailed user screenshots and online conversations.

In terms of smartphone age, 72 per cent of the participants’ smartphones were less than two years old. This high level of churn rate was anticipated and will please retailers and marketers alike. This study found that the majority of smartphone users regularly arrange their app icons and that their categorization principle was based primarily on application associated functionality and frequency of use. This group of users seemed less concerned about the risks of privacy and security, and even when they had lost or had their smartphone stolen, few (5.2 per cent) had suffered from fraud, in contrast to the general perception of risk.

This is one of the few studies to have investigated the area of smartphone use from the users’ perspective, leading to important insights into application user behaviour and icon arrangement, and as well as alternative possible implications for launcher design.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between usability and aesthetic values to clarify what value users place on aesthetic design as compared to usability and how this is different across cultures.

Smartphone service acceptance and uses were analyzed cross‐nationally, in a comparative fashion, focusing on the differences in the composition of motives in the USA and Korea.

While the results illustrate the importance of both usability and aesthetic values, the two countries show different value preferences, as well as intention and adoption patterns.

In the context of the recent overwhelming move toward mobile technologies such as smart devices, there exists a potential trade‐off between the aesthetic design and the usability in smartphones.

The results of this research suggest practical implications for employing cross‐cultural strategies in the global marketing of smartphones, as well as theoretical implications for cross‐country studies, which are recommended accordingly.

The key concern nowadays is smartphone addiction and user profiles. Following the risk and protective factors framework, the authors aim to characterize smartphone users according to two levels: (1) individual: referred to the use (i.e. boredom proneness, compulsive app downloading smartphone addiction) and (2) microsystem: referred to family and peers (i.e. family harmony and phubbing). Besides, the authors will derive useful managerial implications and strategies.

First, an extensive literature revision and in-depth interviews with experts were employed to identify the addiction-related variables at the individual and microsystem level. Second, information was collected from a sample of 275 Spanish smartphone users, and a K-means clustering algorithm was employed to classify smartphone users.

The proposed traffic lights schema identifies three users’ profiles (red, yellow and green) regarding their smartphone addiction and considering individual and microsystem critical variables.

This study proposes a practical and pioneer traffic lights schema to classify smartphone users and facilitate each cluster's strategies development.

一個大家現時頗關注的事項就是智慧型手機癮和用戶檔案。遵循著風險和保護因子框架,我們擬根據兩個層面,去描述智慧型手機使用者的特性:(一) 個人層面: 這是指手機的使用方面 (即是:無聊傾向、強制性應用程式的下載、智慧型手機癮), 以及(二)微系統層面:這是指家庭和同儕 (即是:家庭和諧和低頭族)。此外,我們也會探討從中得到管理方面的啟示和一些有用的策略。

我們首先進行廣泛的文獻回顧和深入訪問有關的專家,以確定在個人和微系統層面上與入迷成癮有關的變數。繼而從275名西班牙智慧型手機使用者中收集資料,然後以K均值聚類算法把智慧型手機使用者分類。

我們提出的紅綠燈圖表,就用戶的智慧型手機癮,並考慮了個人和微系統的關鍵變數,識別了三個用戶檔案(紅、黃、綠)。

本研究提出一個實用及有倡導性的紅綠燈圖表,把智慧型手機使用者分類,並促進每個群集戰略的制定。

In a converged and smart media environment, it no longer makes sense to talk only of a digital divide based on access to a platform – instead, a new “smartphone divide” is created based on a user’s ability to access and use an array of different services. Although there is an extensive literature on the digital divide in broadband access and use, zero research efforts have addressed the digital divide in mobile phone usage. Therefore, this research study aims to fill the gap in the literature by looking into new dimensions of the smartphone divide.

Data were collected from a college student sample through an online survey and some hypotheses were framed and tested for intergroup (smartphone users vs non-users) and intragroup (active smartphone users vs inactive users) differences based on access, experience and persistence of usage.

Findings are: first, smartphone users were more active online as expected. Although no significant difference was detected in the amount of time spent on social networking sites (SNSs) between smartphone users and non-users, smartphone users had more friends online and more “online-only” friends than non-users. Second, smartphone users seem to participate more actively in social and political issues than non-users do. Third, active users were adopting digital technologies faster than less active users, and active users were inclined to spend longer time on SNSs than less active users. Also, active users used more free and paid applications on their smartphones compared to less active users.

This research study aims to fill the gap in the literature by looking into new dimensions of the smartphone divide and exploring the differential usage of smartphone users in terms of usage level, awareness and usability levels, usage scope and consequential uses controlling for demographics and socioeconomic status. The ensuing pilot study validates some of speculations suggested in the previous literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use patterns and ownership of smartphone apps among students at the Department of Library and Information Science (DLIS) at the South Valley University (SVU), Egypt. This study may help faculty members and students, as well as DLISs in general and SVU’s DLIS, in particular, to understand the nature and purpose of such use.

This study used quantitative research methodology in the form of a survey, which was undertaken from February to March 2015. The survey instrument was a self-administrated questionnaire, with a response rate 82.7 per cent (441/533).

The findings of this study showed that smartphone users (82.7 per cent) at SVU’s DLIS tended to be junior females. Smartphone non-users (17.3 per cent) tended to be also young females but primarily sophomores. The highest percentage of smartphone users had been using smartphones for four to five years, and the largest number of students was described to be advanced users who heard first about these mobile devices through friends and the Web. Most users had 21 to 25 apps. Social apps were the most popular and included Facebook, e-mail and Twitter. For professional purposes, students used smartphones more for communication purposes than learning purposes. Apps related to educational purposes included Google Mobile, Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia Mobile. Students perceived most apps to be easy to use and useful to them. There were a number of uses for socializing including messaging, following the news and playing games. Students had mainly positive attitudes towards apps with a few negative concerns. Almost all students confirmed that they trust most apps. Barriers related to the use of apps included training and lack of awareness. Further research may be needed to specify the relationship between the students’ use of these apps and their academic performance. The main tasks done on smartphone devices were mainly for socializing. Students indicated that popular tasks and activities, such as sending and receiving messages, following the news, making communications, making chat, making friends, finding specific information, finding general information, making discussion groups, playing games, completing class assignments, checking materials related to courses, doing business, seeking jobs, watching movies, listening to music and accessing library services are important tasks accomplished by them through the use of these devices. The current study indicated very positive attitudes towards the use of these apps. Student at least agree with the statement that smartphone apps allow for easy dissemination of information, provide too much information, increase the speed of finding information, help communication, convenient, secure, build confident and reduce paper use. However, a large number of students also at least agree with the statement that these apps are time consuming, intimidating, addictive, violate privacy, require high language and technical skills, harmful and frustrating. Almost all students confirmed that they are at least trustful in some apps, such as WhatsApp, e-mail, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and Viber. A large number of smartphone users surveyed in this study have been described to make excessive usage of social apps, such as communication apps, messaging/texting apps and social networking sites, which were at the forefront of use. Additionally, a large number of them adopted these devices, especially for communication purposes. The most used apps were Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube and Viber. For professional purposes, students used smartphones more for communication purposes than learning purposes. However, some of the students were using some of apps related to educational purposes, such as Google mobile, Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia mobile but not on a regular basis. Students perceived the use of e-mail app, Google mobile, Facebook app WhatsApp, Kik, Twitter, YouTube, Google maps, Viber, Line, Skype, Tango, Instagram, Flickr and Wikipedia mobile as at least fairly easy to them. Additionally, they perceived the use of e-mail app Google mobile, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Viber, Instagram, Wikipedia mobile, Google maps, Kik, Skype, Line, Tango and Flickr as at least fairly useful to them, especially for the purpose socialization more than learning.

This study focuses only on undergraduate library and information science students belonging to SVU’s DLIS, Egypt. Any findings and conclusions resulting from this study are limited in scope to only SVU’s DLIS’s undergraduate students. The study does not contain a significantly large sample of a population from across Egypt to draw meaningful widespread conclusions indicative of such a larger population.

This study provides valuable insight into the use pattern of smartphones among a very important client group. It may serve as useful input to researchers who are interested in the study of mobile internet technologies (MITs), particularly in the education society.

Being the first study of its kind about university students in Egypt, it is considered a pioneering and a unique study among studies conducted in the field of ICTs and MITs, especially with this category of information users.

There is a need for behavioural research within the smartphone context to better understand users’ behaviour, as it is one of the reasons for the proliferation of mobile threats. This study aims to identify the human factors that affect smartphone users’ threat avoidance behaviour.

A structured literature review (SLR) was applied to answer the research question. A total of 27 sources were analysed, from which 16 codes emerged. After synthesis, six themes transpired.

Six factors were identified as drivers and/or challenges of smartphone users’ threat avoidance behaviour, namely, knowledge and awareness, misconceptions and trust, cost and benefit considerations, carelessness, perceived measure effectiveness and the user’s perceived skills and efficacy.

The results can encourage and provide a starting point for further research on human behaviour to improve smartphone user behaviour.

The mobile industry should focus on eradicating common misconceptions and undue trust in mobile security that is prevalent among smartphone users and make cost effective and usable interventions available. Training and awareness programs should be updated to include the factors that were identified in this study to affect smartphone users’ threat avoidance behaviour. In addition to improving users’ declarative knowledge concerning available smartphone measures and tools, procedural knowledge should also be improved to ensure proper use of available protective measures. Users should realise the importance of staying updated with evolving smartphone technology and associated threats.

This study acknowledges and supports the notion that addressing human behaviour is crucial in the fight against mobile threats. It addresses the need for behavioural research to analyse the factors that drive smartphone user behaviour. Furthermore, it uses and documents the use of a SLR, a research technique often unfamiliar among information security researchers.