The positive spillover effect of mobile social games on app literacy

Mihyun Lee, Sang Han, Sungho Park, Wonseok Oh

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite the massive influx of mobile apps into the market, not everyone is «mobile literate.» The steady growth of the mobile industry has highlighted the emerging need to advance mobile literacy. This study uses an individual level mobile app usage dataset to examine the potential of mobile platform-based social games as training tools for mobile literacy. We choose Anipang, a popular mobile social game app, as a stimulus in an experiment based on a difference-in-differences framework. We classify app users into two groups on the basis of consumption intensity and then analyze the changes in consumption of apps excluding Anipang before and after Anipang adoption. Results reveal that high Anipang consumption increases the duration of app usage and the number of apps used but that such increase is statistically significant only for the latter. These spillover effects are more pronounced among users with limited mobile experiences or are in their 50s or older. These findings suggest that mobile gaming apps are an attractive means of reaching technologically marginalized cohorts.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 49th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2016
EditorsRalph H. Sprague, Tung X. Bui
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages746-755
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9780769556703
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 7 2016
Event49th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2016 - Koloa, United States
Duration: Jan 5 2016Jan 8 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Volume2016-March
ISSN (Print)1530-1605

Other

Other49th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityKoloa
Period1/5/161/8/16

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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