Smart Phone Devices as Search Tool: A Comparative Study of Information Seeking Behavior among Rural and Urban Readers

G. Ramesh Kumar; J. Dominic

doi:10.51983/ajist-2017.7.2.150

Authors

G. Ramesh Kumar Research Scholar, Department of Library & Information Sciences, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
J. Dominic Chief Librarian, Karunya University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51983/ajist-2017.7.2.150

Keywords:

Smart Phone, Search tool, Information seeking Behaviour

Abstract

The speedy development of Smart Phone Devices (SPDs) and its usage among information seekers have significantly increased over the past 5 years. In order to assess the effectiveness of SPDs in accessing the information has been studied among the two different information-seeker categories from rural and urban areas. 232 respondents from both the regions are selected randomly which is consisting 120 respondents from respective categories. It’s found that urban readers spend more time on SPDs than the rural. Rural information-seekers more interested in entertainment oriented information rather than intellectual based information. Urban readers seek more information on academic and intellectual based information than entertainment. The study reveals that rural readers have less awareness over the important websites and apps which may increase their effectiveness over accessing valid information in solving the information-need purpose.

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