An Observation on the Behavior of Smartphone Addicts at Taipei Mass Rapid Transportation Station

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of smartphone addiction on users in public settings. The experiment was conducted using non-participant observation to observe the smartphone addicts in the metro station. The study investigated: (1) The attendances of the smartphone addicts at different time periods of the day in the MRT station. (2) A study on the behavior of smartphone addicts in MRT, such as the entry route, stay time, etc. The experiment took three days of the week, i.e., the weekdays day on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the weekends on Saturdays. The time for each observation period is 15 min, divided into four time periods: 10:00 am, 13:00, 17:00, and 20:00. The generated results revealed that: (1) Smartphone addicts have higher attendance rates on weekdays than on weekends. (2) The direction indicator of the gate was ignored by some of the smartphone addicts. (3) We propose the design improvement of the direction indicator and suggest an interactive space at MRT station.