Investigating the distinguishing characteristics of users with a landline preference vs. a smartphone preference in Taiwan: Using the technology adoption and innovation resistance perspectives for studying phone users

Abstract

Taiwan is a country with fairly high mobile phone or smart phone penetration. By 2009, Taiwan's mobile phone penetration was hovering near 110%. By 2014, more than 70% of Taiwanese over age 15 owned a smart phone. However, some Taiwanese are not yet accepting of this new technology, the smart phone, for diverse reasons. Some prefer using only landline telephones; some use a traditional mobile phone but prefer landline for contacting their family and friends. Some Taiwanese use both a landline and a smartphone but still prefer the landline. In addition, cell phone-only consumers are increasing in Taiwan, especially among the younger generation. Rogers' “Diffusion of innovations” is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new technology or new ideas spread through societies. The technology acceptance model (TAM) is another information systems theory which investigates how users accept and use a technology. In the technology acceptance model, some factors like Perceived usefulness (PU) and Perceived ease-of-use (PEOU) influences attitudes, intention to use and actual use of a new technology. Nonetheless, not all change is necessarily healthy for all consumers. The innovation resistance of a consumer can be viewed as another perspective for studying how and why a society or some consumers accept or refuse a new technology. Based on TAM and innovations resistance perspectives, the researcher studied what are the distinguishing characteristics of those preferring a landline vs. the smartphone? How can these different consumers be reached? What is their usage of internet, landline and smartphones? Thus in this study, the researcher launched two phone surveys, one sample via landline and another sample via mobile phone, interacting with more than 1,000 respondents in each sample. The population in Taiwan exceeds 23,000,000. The researcher used a CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) system to get RDD (Random Digital Dial) phone numbers for both samples and made them representative of the population. In addition, the researcher used the participant observation records by auditing the survey process to further investigate the characteristics of Taiwanese who prefer landlines or prefer cell phones and smartphones.