The mobile phone use in Mainland China: Some insights from an exploratory study in Beijing

China is the primary market for the mobile phone (with almost 700 million of these devices) and one of the world’s leading countries in ICT production. Inside Mainland China, the capital Beijing and the other coastal industrialized towns have been the first to adopt and appropriate the mobile phone. Until now a certain amount of qualitative research has been devoted to the study of ICTs in China. However, quantitative studies are scarce. Here we present the results of a research based on empirical data specifically focused on mobile communication and carried out in Beijing. A structured questionnaire was personally administered to 487 respondents. This study investigates mobile phone use, its implementation in public spaces, attitudes towards its increasing complexity, opinions on its advantages and disadvantages, and its status in comparison to other technologies of information, communication and mass media in the capital of Mainland China. One main result of this study is that a very positive image of the mobile phone among our respondents was accompanied by only two disadvantages: its being a threat to privacy and its presenting the logistical problem that there is no obvious means to carry it. This latter concern should send a strong message to the fashion industry: the diffusion of the mobile phone has worsened the problem of how to wear these “little essential objects”, which up to now still continues to be unresolved.