Comparative Benefits of Mobile Telephone in Selected Rural and Urban Locations of Obio/Akpor Local Government

The study comparatively identified the benefits of mobile telephone to users in selected rural and urban locations in Obio/Akpor local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria. Stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used in selecting 60 rural and 60 urban phone users to have a total sample size of 120 respondents. Structured questionnaire was used to generate data that were analyzed descriptively. T-test was used for hypothesis testing. Socio-economic characteristics revealed that 53.33% and 50% of the respondents were females in rural and urban locations respectively. Also 25-34 years represented the highest age range for both rural (63.33%) and urban (48.33%) mobile phone users in the area. The marital status of the respondents shows that more (70.00%) urban than (66.67%) rural respondents were single. The duration of mobile phone use indicates 1-4 years as the highest with a higher proportion in the rural (51.67%) than 46.67% of urban respondents. Majority (90.00%) of the urban respondents made use of MTN service provider than 83.33% of the rural respondents. The highest benefit with 100.00% in both rural and urban locations was to socialize with friends and relations. The mean of the benefit of the use of mobile telephone was more in the rural location with 51.19% than the urban location with 46.86%. The t-test result to show the difference in the benefits of mobile phone between rural and urban location users was significant at 0.05 level of significance (p-value = 0.022). Accessing agricultural extension information was the least benefit in the use of mobile phone as shown by 5.00% of rural users and 3.33% of urban users. Improvement of communication between the extension agents and farmers with the use of mobile telephone is recommended in the study area.