Abstract
This second report of the 2018 Time Use Survey on Media Use focuses on the use of smartphones, especially by young people (ages 16 through 29), to present the details of the usage and explore the relations between the specific usage of the phones and the awareness of it. First, the result of the diary style survey shows young men ages 16 through 29 spend much time on social media, videos, games, and music on the smartphone. Meanwhile, women ages 16 through 29 spend much time on social media, followed by videos, and less time on others, compared to the above two media activities. Supplementary questions find the difference between young people and middle-aged people. The latter uses smartphones for media activities such as sending emails and online search as a replacement for the conventional usage of personal computer. On the contrary, young people use smartphones for relatively new services such as “social media” and “videos,” and access multiple social media networks for various purposes such as “search and information collection,” “viewing videos,” and “watching news.” Furthermore, the authors surveyed whether they “found themselves being obsessed, forgetting the time” when using the smartphone or “felt after using the phone that they had wasted time,” based on which the characteristics of smartphone usage by the awareness on the above situation were studied. It is revealed the percentage of those who have such a feeling is high among young people, who actively use smartphones, and low among middle-aged and elderly people. Many of the outcomes suggest that the quantity of smartphone usage is linked to the presence or the absence of such awareness, but this does not necessarily apply to every element, which tells that the awareness and the usage cannot simply be correlated.
