Daily Behavior of Generation Z Using a Smart Phone App for Content Recommendation based on Context Awareness

Abstract

Background For the users who feel tired of using many smartphone apps, smartphone manufacturers provide pages that allow them to access the contents of interest directly from the smart phone home screen without going through the app interface. However, in a situation where precise personalization is difficult due to the policy change for sharing personal behavior data, it is important to identify common behavior patterns of users. Therefore, in this study, we find out smart phone usage patterns of a day in order to recommend content suitable for the situation of the digital native generation, Generation Z. Methods In the literature search, we reviewed the approach to personalization service, the information types of context awareness, and the usage behavior of Generation Z based on the app category. A pilot interview was conducted to identify the places, times, and situations that users mainly use smartphones. Then, a survey was conducted for Generation Z to verify the statistical significance of the relationship between categories and time. In the in-depth interview, we extracted daily smart phone use cases and multitasking cases of apps that they use every day, and for verification, a second survey was conducted for Generation Z to identify the behaviors that received more than 50% positive responses. Results The daily smartphone usage behavior of Generation Z did not differ significantly between weekends and weekdays. However, there was a large difference according to the situation rather than the time of day. The most commonly used places are public transportation, home, cafe, travel destination, restaurant, movie theater, school, and company. In the categories affected by time zone, entertainment and tools were statistically significant. The daily use cases that received more than 50% positive responses in the second survey are as follows: use in leisure time before bed, use of short or appropriate length content according to the situation intermittently or unconsciously, consume real-time location and location-related information while on the go, purchase or visit after checking social networking site (SNS) feeds, use habitual music app, use content to communication and write comments, use multiple apps in the same category, and combine multiple apps. Conclusions The results of this study can be used as a reference for UX design when providing personalized information by identifying users’ behavioral data. In addition, the study will be useful information for providing content suitable for Generation Z in a situation where it is mandatory to check whether personal data is shared.