Motivations for Using Short Messaging Service

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1 Motivations for Using Short Messaging Service Liqiong Deng, Richards College of Business, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118, (678) , Jun Sun, College of Business Administration, University of Texas Pan American, Edinburg, TX 78539, (956) , Douglas Turner, Richards College of Business, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118, (678) , Bradley Prince, Richards College of Business, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118, (678) , ABSTRACT Given the increasing importance of short messaging service (SMS) as a means of mobile communication, the purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive measurement instrument of motivations for using SMS. Drawing on the uses and gratifications theory, we conducted explorative qualitative and quantitative studies to identify factors motivating the use of this service. Using factor analysis, we discovered a five-factor scale that consists of ubiquitous communication, affection/sociability, information-seeking, fashion, and non-intrusive communication motivations. The motivations of ubiquitous communication and non-intrusive communication were found to predict the amount of SMS usage. The implications of the proposed scale are discussed for future research. INTRODUCTION As the mobile voice communication market approaches saturation, carriers are focusing on messaging as a crucial value-added service to garner more mobile subscribers and generate greater market revenues. Specifically, short messaging service (SMS) is emerging as one of the most important forms of asynchronous communication that carriers provide. It is projected that in 2009 U. S. subscribers will send over 126 billion messages via their mobile devices, generating $8.6 billion revenue [1]. To significantly increase the usage of and revenue from SMS, it is necessary to first understand what motivates people to use SMS. Nowadays, people are presented with a wide variety of choices of communication media (e.g., , instant messaging (IM), mobile voice communication, and SMS). A solid understanding of the factors motivating usage of SMS over other communication media can advance our knowledge of SMS use and lead to better designs for the user experience. To date, most research has focused on the use of SMS by teenagers and young adults. Recently, as SMS becomes pervasive in our daily lives, older people also recognize the convenience of using SMS. It has been reported that over 74% of all mobile phone users worldwide use SMS text messaging [2]. Very few studies have investigated the varied motivations for using SMS in a comprehensive manner. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to more fully understand the motivations for using SMS. Specifically, we draw on the uses and gratifications theory to understand users gratification-

2 seeking motivations underlying their usage of SMS. These motivations are closely related to users SMS usage behaviors, media and content choice, and involvement in SMS experience [3]. A sound measurement of SMS usage motivations will provide a foundation for future research investigating the relationships between SMS usage motivations, SMS experience, SMS usage behaviors (e.g., frequency of SMS usage, SMS communication content, etc.), and outcomes of SMS usage (e.g., satisfaction, communication efficiency, relationship building/enhancement, etc.). The measurement can be employed to build a taxonomy of SMS users based on their motivations, thereby providing mobile carriers with guidance for SMS service design and delivery. Moreover, by integrating the concept of uses and gratifications theory with the traditional focus on rational utility, this research provides a new perspective for technology usage research and emphasizes the importance of users psychological needs in shaping the choice and use of communication media. LITERATURE REVIEW Most IS research on technology adoption and usage draws on Davis technology acceptance model (TAM) [4], Ajzen and Fishbein s theory of planned behavior (TBP) [5], and Venkatesh et al. s unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) [6]. These models provide valuable insights on adoption and use of technology at the workplace, where adoption is usually not under the volitional control of user. These findings however may not apply to the adoption of SMS, which is almost completely voluntary use. While user beliefs about technology usefulness and ease-of-use have been shown to predict adoption of technology at the workplace [4], however, perceived usefulness and ease-of-use may not provide adequate motivations to use SMS. Today, people face a broad range of choices in media for fulfilling their communication needs, such as , voice mail, instant messaging, and so on. SMS emerges as new alternative means of asynchronous communication, which users may lack a compelling motivation to adopt. It was reported that US has been lagging behind Europe and Japan in the adoption of SMS. As pointed out by Järvenpää et al. (2003), consumers will use new mobile services only when those services create new choices where mobility really matters and positively affect their lives. This makes it appropriate to employ the uses and gratifications theory in studying the adoption and use of SMS. The uses and gratification theory focuses on the individual use and choice of communication media motivated by the desire to satisfy a wide variety of psychological needs. The uses and gratification theory has been widely applied to study the motivations underlying media consumption in an everyday context [7], such as conventional telephone[8], pager [9], [10], and cell phone [11]. The theory assumes that media users are active participants in their media choice and use [12]. They are aware of their needs and select appropriate media to gratify their needs [12]. Much of the uses and gratifications research has focused on identifying the gratifications satisfied by the use of certain media [13, 14]. It has provided support for both intrinsic and instrumental motivations underlying media usage. As such, the motivations underlying conventional telephone usage are functional motive, i.e., information seeking, making appointments, etc., and relational motive, i.e., chatting, keeping contacts with family and friends, etc. [15]. Cell phone usage is motivated by mobility, immediacy, instrumentality, and affection/sociability [11]. This study builds on prior research on uses and gratifications in exploring the gratifications most sought from the use of SMS.

3 RESEARCH METHOD Data Collection and Sample The data was collected with an online questionnaire targeted to users of SMS. A screening question was included at the beginning of survey to determine whether the respondent is using SMS at the time of the survey. The survey website was designed in such a way that only the existing SMS users who use SMS at least once per day will be able to proceed with the survey. An invitation with a link to the survey was sent to an online consumer survey panel. Cash incentive was provided to encourage participation in the survey. A total of 197 useable responses were received. All the respondents used SMS at least once a day. There were 121 female respondents (61.42%) and 76 male respondents (38.58%). The respondents ages ranged from 18 to 67. A total of 119 respondents were between 18 and 29 years (60.41%), and the remaining 78 respondents were between 30 and 67 years old (39.59%). Most respondents (n=179, 90.86%) have used SMS for more than one year % of the respondents (n = 87) sent at least one and maximally five SMS-messages a day, and 55.84% of the respondents (n = 110) sent more than five SMS-messages a day. Measures The gratifications of SMS usage were measured with a combination of items used previously in the gratification literature [8, 11, 16] and new items based on the interviews with SMS users. The items from the existing literature were modified to describe the gratification sought in SMS. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with the end users of SMS to understand SMS usage motivations from the user s perspective and generate new gratification items. A total of 47 items were generated and tested in a pilot study using a student sample. Based on the results of the pilot study, 27 items were eliminated due to low factor loadings, high crossing-loadings, or low communalities. The remaining 20 items were included in the survey. Survey participants were asked to respond to each item statement on a 7-point Likert-type scale anchored by 1=strongly disagree and 7=strongly agree. We also measured the amount of SMS use by asking the respondents to report the average number of SMS messages sent per day. Respondents were also asked about their age, education, gender, occupation, and length of SMS use. DATA ANALYSIS Principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was run to determine the potential groupings of the 20 gratification items of SMS usage. An eigenvalue of greater than 1.0 was required to retain a factor. The factor score was calculated for each of the SMS motivation factors by averaging the scores of the items for the factor. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the relationships between SMS motivation factors and amount of SMS use. The length of SMS usage was entered in the first block, the demographic variables (age, gender, and education) were entered in the second block, and the SMS motivation factors were entered in the third block for the hierarchical regression analysis.

4 RESULTS Factor Analysis The value of Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy, which examines the existence of patterns among measurement items, was greater than 0.89 (well above the 0.50 criteria). The Bartlett s Test of Sphericity was significant at the level, indicating that the items were correlated and suitable for factor analysis [17]. Table 1. Gratification Items and Factors Factor Item Content UBQT1 To have the convenience of contacting others anytime anywhere Ubiquitous UBQT2 To contact people easily whenever I need to Communication UBQT3 To have the ease of contacting people anytime anywhere AFSO1 To share experiences and emotions with friends AFSO2 To communicate emotions AFSO3 To express affections Affection/ AFSO4 To plan logistics for social events Sociability AFSO5 To coordinate activities with others AFSO6 To organize social events AFSO7 To coordinate time/places for social events To receive information or notifications, such as weather/traffic INFO1 Information condition, appointment reminder, and etc. Seeking INFO2 To keep up-to-date with everyday occurrences INFO3 To receive information on topics I am interested in such as news FASH1 To look fashionable Fashion FASH2 To feel stylish FASH3 To feel cool UINT1 To have private communication in public To communicate with people without interrupting currently UINT2 Non-intrusive ongoing events communication To communicate without having to commit to a spoken UINT3 conversation UINT4 To communicate with no commitment required Varimax rotation was performed on the data and resulted in a clearly identifiable five component solution representing five gratification dimensions with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. The five dimensions explain 77.33% of the total variance. Table 1 presents the items and their corresponding factors. The first factor, ubiquitous communication, suggests a use of SMS motivated by the convenience/ease of maintaining contacts anytime anywhere. The second factor is affection/sociality, which indicates the motivations of using SMS to express emotions and coordinate social events [16]. The third factor, information seeking, reflects the use of SMS motivated by the need to receive relevant information and keep up-to-date with everyday occurrences [16]. The fourth factor is fashion, which pertains to the use of SMS for being fashionable and stylish [16]. Non-intrusive communication emerged as the fifth factor, which

5 demonstrates the motivations of using SMS to avoid a spoken conversation and have private communication without interrupting any ongoing events. All the items had loadings of above 0.50 to their corresponding factors. No item yielded crossloadings above 0.40, indicating good discriminant validity. Factor reliability was estimated by assessing the internal consistency of the scale items using Cronbach s alpha, which were all above Therefore, the measures were considered reliable. The factor loadings and Cronbach s alpha values are reported in Table 2. Table 2. Factor Loading and Reliability for SMS Gratification Dimensions Item Ubiquitous Affection/ Information Non-intrusive Fashion Communication Sociability Seeking communication UBQT1.869 UBQT2.825 UBQT3.865 AFSO1.688 AFSO2.770 AFSO3.745 AFSO4.742 AFSO5.696 AFSO6.757 AFSO7.743 INFO1.810 INFO2.543 INFO3.685 FASH1.885 FASH2.913 FASH3.914 UINT1.609 UINT2.659 UINT3.823 UINT4.692 Number of Items Cronbach s Alpha Hierarchical Multiple Regression To investigate how the SMS motivation factors extracted from the factor analysis influence the amount of SMS use, we conducted hierarchal multiple regression analysis. The amount of SMS use was regressed on three blocks of variables: the length of SMS usage, followed by the demographics variables (age, gender, education), and the five SMS motivation factors. The total variance explained for the amount of SMS use was 31.0% (R Squared). The length of SMS usage and demographic variables accounted for 14.2% of the variance on the amount of

6 SMS use. The five SMS motivation factors explained the additional 16.8% of the variance in the amount of SMS use. The results also show that ubiquitous communication (β =.152, p = 0.05), and non-intrusive communication (β =.183, p = 0.037) were significant predictors of the amount of SMS use. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH The purpose of this research was to discover the gratification factors that motivate the use of SMS. Five types of SMS motivations were identified ubiquitous communication, affection/sociability, information seeking, fashion, and non-intrusive communication. These results are largely consistent with previous studies on the cell phone and pager [11, 16]. Nonintrusive communication emerged as a unique motivation factor for SMS. It suggests the motivation of using SMS to avoid talking. By eliminating the need to talk on the phone, SMS is discreet and does not intrude on the privacy of user when sending and receiving messages. Furthermore, the motivations of non-intrusive communication and ubiquitous communication were found to significantly predict the amount of SMS use. Both motivations point to the convenience of using SMS to maintain contacts wherever the user is and whenever the user wants. In an attempt to integrate the uses and gratifications theory and technology usage research, this study enriches our understanding of the gratifications people seek from SMS and relates these gratifications to the SMS usage behavior. This study opens several avenues for future research. First, due to the exploratory nature of this study, the findings of this study should be subject to more rigorous testing in future research. Second, future research can investigate how SMS users motivations will vary with regards to gender, age, and usage contexts. Third, a taxonomy of SMS users can be constructed based on their motivations for using SMS. This will provide a useful tool for mobile carriers to understand their users and tailor the design and delivery of SMS to certain user segments. Finally, more work is required to explore the consequences of the gratifications sought from the use of SMS, such as SMS usage patterns, user satisfaction, relationship building/enhancement, etc. REFERENCES [1] Golvin, C.S. & Charron, C. Sizing the us mobile messaging market. Business View Market Overview, 2004 [2] Mellor, B. Nomads at last. in Economist, [3] McQuail, D. With more hindsight: Conceptual problems and some ways forward for media use research. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 2001, 26(4), [4] Davis, F.D. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 1989, 13(3), [5] Ajzen, I. & Fishbein, M. Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., [6] Venkatesh, V., Morris, M.G., Davis, G.B. & Davis, F.D. User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, 2003, 27(3),

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