Acceptance and use of mobile phone mediated communication technologies in community communications

In this paper we analyze the acceptance of mobile phone mediated communication technologies in community context. To be able to do that we first develop a model for adoption and use of mobile information services based both on technology acceptance and user satisfaction literature. The new model is then applied to three different student communities: Finnish, Spanish and Chinese students all studying in Finland. Our study has two interesting results. First, usefulness is more important than ease of use in acceptance of basic communication services in community context. Second, although the acceptance of mobile phone mediated communication technologies was similar in all sub-communities, there were clear differences how mobile communications was used. The differences in the structures of social networks indicate different levels of commitment to own community and integration to other communities.