Use of Smartphones in Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Nigeria and the Gratification Concept: A Factor Analytic Report (Published)
Consumers are emotionally attached to products that make life easy. The economics aphorism that says ‘human being are rational; they tend to derive maximum enjoyment from their last penny’ seems to have taken its course in the consumption habit of an average human being. Observably, most products now come with value addition or multiple functions that gratifies the user. The Android smartphone is one. Being a consumer-nation, the Western world is busy flooding the Nigerian market with all manner of products without reference to whether or not the people have mastered the previous technology enough. However, recent studies have shown that smartphone products have both the good and bad sides of it. This survey study investigates the use of smartphones among the students of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria and the gratification that they get from it. One objective and one research question were set to guide the study. Sample size of 380 was taken as sample from of 27,000 students. Systematic random sampling was used, which means that only those who possess android smartphones are qualified. Questionnaire was used as research instrument while data collected were analyzed with the aid of factor analysis. Findings, after the factorial grouping and extraction shows that students are most gratified in the area of social interaction with a percentage variance of 27.174 than any of the other three factors.
Keywords: Distraction., Gratification, Multitasking, Smartphone, social interaction