Back in March on a quiet day at Catalysis, an email went round with only six words in the subject line ‘What annoys you about social media?’ Suffice it to say our server nearly crashed from the sheer volume of responses about our ‘pet peeves’ that fired between our PCs . Whether over-sharing personal details in status updates, tagging in unflattering photos or having a child or pets as your profile pictures – this topic riled a few people. This wasn’t the first time that device manners had become a Catalysis discussion point – Lauren before highlighted her confusion over the correct twitequette which got us all thinking.
As entertaining as it was to conduct some internal research and see people quickly update their personal social media sites to ensure they were not committing these ‘sins’, this was not done just for the fun of it. We were looking to see if we could introduce a social media angle to the Intel ‘Mobile Manners’ campaign that we were about to launch. The campaign looked at 16 countries in EMEA to try and understand whether, as the use of mobile technology is now so pervasive, there is a need for a device code of conduct? Or have a set of mobile etiquette rules already emerged – similar to those we have for other parts of our lives, for example when sat at the dining table?
We predicted that a ‘one size fits all’ code of conduct would not apply across different countries and cultures, so decided to localise our surveys to some extent. Flashbacks to HSBC’s ‘worldwide local bank’ adverts came to mind; they took great pride in making a conscious effort to show an understanding of the subtleties of cultural differences. With this in mind we sent off our questionnaire, enriched by the country-specific questions, to Redshift research and let them work their magic.
As the results came back in, and after a while staring at an excel sheet with more data than I knew what to do with, some trends started to emerge. We are addicted to our devices. Two thirds (67%) of people feel the need to check their mobile device before going to work in the morning with almost a quarter (23%) doing it before they even get out of bed. Nearly one in ten people would rather be without their partner than their mobile device for a week. Our mobile manners self-perception is skewed. Just 11% rated the general population as having excellent mobile manners but 50% said that their own mobile etiquette were excellent – not at all judgemental then it seems. The over-riding theme is that we want, and perhaps need, behavioural rules governing our use of mobile devices.
With the analysis completed – we were ready to send it out to the press and see what they made of it. Headlines on the survey soon emerged in the Nationals, including bad mobile etiquette still irksome but public becoming more tolerant (The Independent) and how Britons are hypocritical on mobile phone manners (The Telegraph).
A survey campaign across 16 countries is always going to take some serious planning, and leave you wondering whether you can identify truly engaging themes which transcend national and cultural differences. But the widespread adoption of mobile devices, and their increasing importance in our daily lives, meant that this survey seemed to resonate across the region. It showed that with the right planning and a little flexibility, a really strong message can easily be communicated across cultural boundaries.
Would be interesting to see if the results vary in the different countries. Were there any obvious cultural differences?
Yes there were a few areas that stood out for us:
• The Western European population is more critical of its peers when it comes to mobile manners than those in the Middle East. In fact in the UK we are quite hypercritical – we rank our personal mobile manners as excellent yet seem to believe everyone else has a lot worse manners.
• When it came to putting people on the spot and asking whether they’d give up their device instead or something important to them, the Spanish were desperate to keep hold of their holiday days while those in the UAE were less so. In fact some of the Middle Eastern countries were more prepared to give up seeing their partner for a week than they were their devices.
• When it came to social media we found there was a difference based on a country’s culture. For some countries (I won’t say who) where there is a reluctance to talk about themselves or to ‘show-off’ with status updates, their social media adoption was lower. We also found that countries which have been impact by events in which social media has played a part, such as the Middle East, the countries were more likely to have a high social media usage.
Hope this helps Paula
Love the Spanish holiday fact, thanks! Very interesting.