Factors influencing smartphone usage of rural farmers : empirical analysis of five selected provinces in China

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Date

Authors

Ma, Wanglin
Owusu-Sekyere, Enoch
Zheng, Hongyun
Owusu, Victor

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Sage

Abstract

The increasing usage of smartphones by practitioners in various fields of expertise is attracting global attention. However, scanty evidence exists on smartphone usage among rural farmers in developing countries. Using data collected from 1286 rural farming households in five provinces in China, this study investigates the factors influencing rural farmers’ decisions to use smartphones. The findings from a Probit model reveal that education, health condition, asset ownership, income levels, peers’ smartphone usage, internet access, cooperative membership, access to credit, and off-farm work participation are the main factors driving smartphone usage of rural farmers. The age of the farmer rather affects smartphone usage negatively and significantly. Further heterogeneous analysis shows that the influences of factors on smartphone usage vary across the survey provinces.

Description

DATA AVAILABITY STATEMENT: The data that support the findings of this study are available from Hongyun Zheng upon request.

Keywords

Smartphone usage, Probit model, Influencing factors, Rural farmers, China, SDG-01: No poverty, SDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG-01:No poverty
SDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Citation

Ma, W., Owusu-Sekyere, E., Zheng, H., & Owusu, V. (2023). Factors influencing smartphone usage of rural farmers: Empirical analysis of five selected provinces in China. Information Development, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669231201828.