Mobile phone bling boosts device attachment

Choosing mobile phone cases and customising phones with charms and decorations may reveal a lot about a person's culture, as well as increase attachment to the devices, scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have found.
Researchers found that people from Eastern cultures tend to be more motivated to change the look and sound of their mobile phones than people in Western countries.
"People who live in collectivist cultures are often more other-directed. They want to know how others might look at them and also look to others as a way of influencing their own behaviours," said S Shyam Sundar, Distinguished Professor of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, Penn State.

The researchers gave American and South Korean students surveys on how they customised their mobile phones and asked them how they perceived their social identity and efforts to self-promote.
Mobile phone accessories, which are big business in South Korea, Japan and other Eastern countries, include physical items, such as charms, cases, bags and stickers, as well as functional additions, such as ringtones and screen wallpaper.
The surveys revealed that Koreans were more focused on how to fit into social situations, according to Sundar, who worked with Seoyeon Lee, a mobile user-interface and user-experience researcher at LG Electronics in Seoul.

They also were more likely to look at the actions of others to give them cues on behaviour.

Americans, on the other hand, valued self-expression more and were less worried about how others perceived them. This could be why Americans customise less, while Koreans accessorise their phones to a greater degree.
People see their phones not as a tool, but as part of themselves, according to the researchers.
"The more you customise your phone for aesthetic reasons the more it reflects who you are. You see your phone as your self," said Sundar.
While people who live in Eastern cultures, which are typically more collectivist than Western cultures, tend to be more expressive with their mobile phone customisation than Westerners, both cultures become more attached to the devices after they are customised.

Technology companies may want to provide more ways for a consumer to customise products to enhance this feeling of attachment, researchers said.
"Tools for aesthetic customisation can enhance people's attachment to a device, regardless of culture," said Sundar.
"In this study we looked at phones, but it could also apply to other information technology products that people use in public, such as iPads," he said.
A total of 400 American students from a US university and 205 Korean students from various South Korean universities were asked to fill out a survey with 112 questions. Approximately 49 of the respondents did not have any customisation.