Paper Title :The Impact of Socio-Economic Status on The Utilization of Smartphones in Lebanon

Author :Hussein Nassar, Nabil Oumais

Article Citation :Hussein Nassar ,Nabil Oumais , (2016 ) " The Impact of Socio-Economic Status on The Utilization of Smartphones in Lebanon " , International Journal of Management and Applied Science (IJMAS) , pp. 38-41, Volume-2,Issue-12, Special Issue-1

Abstract : The study analyzes the impact of socioeconomic factors on the use of smartphones applications in Lebanon. Knowledge gap theory postulates that mass media are not sufficient to distribute the knowledge evenly within a population. The theory claims that individuals having higher socioeconomic status are oftengranted higher degree of knowledge. In the information era, some scholars hypothesized that the interactive and mobilenature of the Internet will facilitate bridging the knowledge gap. However, other researchers claimed that individuals from the two different spectra of the society access onlineapplications differently, with individuals of higher socioeconomic status having better utilization capabilities than individuals of lower socioeconomic status. This study was based on403 samples collected evenly from low and high socioeconomicclasses of Lebanese students. A two partsmodel (logit and glm) approach was used as analytical tool. The results indicated thatindividuals with higher socioeconomic status have tendency to use their smartphones morefrequently especially applications relatedto email, instant messaging, phone calls, information search, academicsearches, and searching for information of points of interest (e.g.restaurants, libraries, museums etc...). The results ofthis study have public health, social and business implications as government and business are increasingly relying on smartphones to convey their messages.

Type : Research paper

Published : Volume-2,Issue-12, Special Issue-1

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