An Exploratory Study of Smartphone and Smartphone Application Use in the U.S. Forest Products Industry

Abstract

This work conducted market research on the use of smartphones and smartphone applications (apps) in the forest products industry and academia. Scholarly literature was reviewed, and related apps were considered. An online survey was conducted to collect data adopting a convenience sampling method. Participants were individuals who work with wood or wood-based products. The sample was compiled from publicly available online and offline sources. A questionnaire was specifically developed for this study. Out of 1,221 email invitations, 311 responses were returned at the response rate of 27.2%. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance were used for analysis. Nearly all of the respondents (95.7%) had smartphones, and over half of them were iOS users (52.3%). A higher personal use, as compared to work use, of smartphone apps was observed. Respondents of Millennials and Generation X indicated higher personal app use than Baby Boomers. Academia and research users showed higher app uses. More respondents had purchased paid apps (45.2%) than in-app services on free apps (28.5%). This finding indicates that paid apps may be of more interest to respondents than in-app purchases.