An Empirical Analysis of User Content Generation and Usage Behavior on the Mobile Internet

Abstract

We quantify how user mobile Internet usage relates to unique characteristics of the mobile Internet. In particular, we focus on examining how the mobile-phone-based content generation behavior of users relates to content usage behavior. The key objective is to analyze whether there is a positive or negative interdependence between the two activities. We use a unique panel data set that consists of individual-level mobile Internet usage data that encompass individual multimedia content generation and usage behavior. We combine this knowledge with data on user calling patterns, such as duration, frequency, and locations from where calls are placed, to construct their social network and to compute their geographical mobility. We build an individuallevel simultaneous equation panel data model that controls for the different sources of endogeneity of the social network. We find that there is a negative and statistically significant temporal interdependence between content generation and usage. This finding implies that an increase in content usage in the previous period has a negative impact on content generation in the current period and vice versa. The marginal effect of this interdependence is stronger on content usage (up to 8.7%) than on content generation (up to 4.3%). The extent of geographical mobility of users has a positive effect on their mobile Internet activities. Users more frequently engage in content usage compared to content generation when they are traveling. In addition, the variance of user mobility has a stronger impact on their mobile Internet activities than does the mean. We also find that the social network has a strong positive effect on user behavior in the mobile Internet. These analyses unpack the mechanisms that stimulate user behavior on the mobile Internet. Implications for shaping user mobile Internet usage behavior are discussed. Sang-Pil HanPostdoctoral Researcher, Stern School of Business, New York University AbstractWe quantify how users' mobile Internet use is related to some unique characteristics of the mobile Internet space like usage-based data pricing, the extent of their geographical mobility and their social network behavior. We use a unique panel dataset consisting of individual-level mobile Internet usage data encompassing their multimedia content uploading and downloading behavior along with detailed data on their voice and text calls, and demographics. We build and estimate an individual-level simultaneous equations panel data model using three-stage least-squares (3SLS) after controlling for the endogeneity of the social network. We find that there exists negative temporal interdependence between the content generation and usage behavior for a given user. While the extent of geographical mobility of users is positively associated with their mobile Internet activities, users more frequently engage in content downloading compared to content uploading when they travel. We find statistically significant social network effects that are robust across model specific...

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