Introduction to EURESCOM P-903

Enid Mante

Enid started by providing a history of the EURESCOM P-903 project (‘ICT and Everyday Life’), which was one follow-up from the older COST248 programme. The project proved to be very popular – many telecom companies wanted to join it and hence the project was fully funded. The P-903 initiative started with Denmark.
France, the Netherlands and Norway and was joined by the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain. The project lasted 2 years, finishing in March 2001.

The research examined how macro-variables (country, region) and household and individual characteristics (including life stage) shaped adoption and use of ICTs?. In addition the project considered the influence of three dimensions of everyday life – time, mobility and social networks – as well as the influence of culture (e.g. cultures of countries and within countries).

There were qualitative and quantitative components in the project. The former consisted of six focus groups in six countries (the participating countries with the exception of Norway), including non-users as well as users of mobile phones and of the Internet. The ideas and hypotheses that emerged from these fed into the construction of a questionnaire, which was also shaped by the shared conceptual framework that was elaborated in the course of the project. At the middle review stage of the project there were problems because EURESCOM questioned whether it was necessary to spend so much money on a survey or whether the qualitative results were enough. However, permission was given to continue, although this delayed the project by a few months. The survey was carried out at the end of 2000 in nine countries (seven of the project members plus the UK and Germany). After cleaning the data, there were two months to conduct the statistical analyses.


Time Use and Life Stage, the Qualitative Study
Lajla Klamer


Lajla provided a background to the qualitative study and the composition of the different groups (two groups with neither a mobile phone nor Internet access, two with both technologies, one group with only the Internet, one group with only the mobile).

Mobility had in general increased for various reasons noted by the participants, although there were also groups who were relatively immobile in everyday life – e.g. students, women with small children. Commuting was not the problem that telcos might have anticipated.

People who feel time pressures sometimes see this in a positive way, not just as being stressful. For example, it depends whether you can cope with competing demands on time. This is relevant for telcos who are trying to sell ICTs as relieving time stress. The relationship between home and work was an issue given the increasing possibility of flexible work and telework. Parents’ involvement in children’s activities takes time, although this can be pleasurable. The composition of the household and family obligations have a strong influence on time use.

The household and close family remain the most important social network. Close family were more important in Southern Europe. Relations with colleagues varied, depending on whether they were friends. The fact that people have differing time structures creates problems of co-ordination. Developers need also to think about what services might support communication, including the emotional aspects of communication.

The mobile is regarded as an extension of the fixed phone. There are differences in attitudes as regards being reachable and being able to reach others. Being able to control communication is important to non-users. In the future, many new services are expected by the participants.

In the graphs showing the age distribution of adoption of mobiles and of the Internet there is the same overall tendency, involving a decline in adoption with age. But the mobile has a higher level of adoption at all ages. There are some variation by country e.g. the curve is flattest for Norway.

The Internet is seen as quite a new technology that demands training. Those without access usually do not reject the Internet but rather say that they have no need for it or that it is too difficult to learn. Non-users think of the Internet in terms of accessing information whereas users start to think of communication. There are different attitudes to e-commerce - there are still perceived security problems with the Internet and people still have an interest in seeing goods in shops. Children are a motive for acquiring the Internet. There are concerns about time spent on-line.

Reflecting on future services, participants think that these would make everything more effective, although there is concern about losing jobs. Interfaces need to be more useable. There is concern about surveillance (ÕBig brotherÕ). ICTs should not remove oneÕs own creativity.

Diffusion and Attitudes and Set-up of the Database
Jeroen Heres


Jeroen described the set-up of the quantitative study, and issues raised by such a diverse group of researchers with different traditions. He observed that they had needed to cut down the number of questions. They chose a survey involving a one-hour face-to-face interview with closed questions. There were also some problems with translations, as meanings sometimes changed. It was also difficult to find questions and answer options that could be interpreted in the same way in each country. Nine countries were surveyed, involving over 9000 respondents and more than 400 variables. The reports that have been produced only manage to scratch the surface of the material in the database – hence the desire to open this database to COST269 members (discussed later). EURESCOM is currently formulating a contract specifying rules about using the database.

As regards the Internet, the digital divide between countries exists and has been widening over the last 5 years. Germany is the only country catching up a little to the advanced countries (Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands). Scepticism is the main reason for non-adoption. This scepticism drops as people start to use the Internet. Users think that the Internet is fun, non-users do not; users think that it is easy to use, non-users do not. But users and non-users have the similar views as regards distrust (e.g. using credit cards on-line), that friendships on-line are superficial and that there is too much pornography on the Internet.

As regards the mobile phone, the European digital divide is declining. The majority of new adopters are females, and more elderly are becoming mobile users. There were differences between non-users in terms of attitudes about how the mobile is integrated into everyday life (the users see it as being more integrated), but both users and non-users see the mobile as being useful for meeting unanticipated contingencies and both perceive that the mobile has various negative effects (e.g. that the mobile can disturb others, that radio waves were not healthy and as regards safety issues of calling when driving. The mobile phones score lower in terms of fun than the Internet, (it is probably seen as being more functional.)

There is a causality question – do attitudes (e.g. perception that the Internet is fun) lead to adoption, or do attitudes change after adoption: a ‘diffusion-approach’ vs. a ‘domestication approach’). Probably both processes are at work.


Social Networks and Residential ICT Adoption and Use
Frank Thomas


Frank outlined the questions asked in P903 relating to social networks: the size of networks and their composition (e.g. how many relatives), how they are contacted and how far away they are. Some results where: At each life stage, face-to-face and phone contact go together (e.g. both rise at certain points). E-mail and mobile phone users have larger social networks than non-users. In all countries, the majority of social network members live within 50km, and one graph showed which media of communications are used in relation to the distance of network members (e.g. mobiles are used locally).

Both spatial concentration and family- vs. friend-orientation emerged as two important dimensions. Those with distant and large networks use electronic means of communication more, those with local and small networks use voice more. The EURESCOM research looked at the profiles (e.g. age, how much they socialise) of those with different types of social networks (e.g. large, spatially wide social networks orientated towards friends). Frank demonstrated how these had been analysed.

Social network analysis therefore sheds light on ICT adoption and use beyond what can be found in more commonly used measures such as socio-demographics. The influence is significant, even after socio-demographics are taken into account. The nature of the networks and the size and direction of their influence depends on social and national context.


Further Lines of Analysis
Leslie Haddon


Leslie broadly reflected on dimensions that had struck him following the P903 project: some entailing future possible research, some inviting reflection in the further work we do.

The first series of questions concerned the EURESCOM project’s use of several ‘user’/’non-user’ categories: Adopting users, Non-adopting users, Adopting non-users, Former users, Non-adopting non-users. Leslie suggested that these be adopted within COST269, although some of the following questions showed how they could also be problematic. There were further questions to be asked concerning Non-adopting users, Adopting non-users and Former users.

Next there were some further questions on Domestication, a concept utilised with the P903 project but mainly in relation to attitudes. One of these questions, later asked also of time issues, was to look beyond patterns showing what exists or even what is changing to consider how fixed, how contingent, domestication is. This would involve a different type of enquiry.

The presentation considered a number of questions relating to time, some of which were addressed in P903 but could be taken further (e.g. perceptions of time pressure).

Finally there were some questions on mobility taken from the COST269 mobility report, which itself had been influenced by the P903 work.