Context, Gender and Intended Use of Mobile Messaging, Entertainment and Social Media Services

The added value of mobile services is decided by the context in which they are used. In this paper, the authors study how the context-of-use influences the intention to adopt mobile messaging, entertainment and social media services. While doing so, the authors compare the intended use between males and females. The results are based on a large scale survey study among Finnish consumers. According to the findings, the context-of-use matters for mobile entertainment and messaging services, but not for social media services. Fit with social context is only important for social media services, whilst work-related context matters only for messaging services. In general, context-of-use is more decisive for men than women. However, while ubiquitous context-of-use is much more important for males, social and work context are relevant only for females. The results have important implications for service providers on how to develop and implement specific context-aware mobile services.