Investigation on the Spatio-Temporal Mobility and Smartphone Usage of College Students.

User attributes, such as gender, age, and education background, affect users’ spatio-temporal mobility and smartphone usage. A two-week diary study was conducted among thirteen participants to investigate the spatio-temporal behavior and smartphone usage of college students. Data including the mobility trajectory, the overall smartphone usage, and the mobile application usage were collected three times per day, and the participants reported the travel distance from their residence every day. The results showed the impact of temporal characteristics on spatial mobility and smartphone usage. For example, participants visited traffic areas the least on weekdays and the most on holidays, and they used the communication applications most often and for the longest time in all parts of the day and on all types of days. Besides, the different movement patterns presented by participants during the study can be coded as higher regularity and higher mobility. An 87.30% prediction accuracy was achieved using the classification model of the support vector machine, suggesting that the features of spatio-temporal behavior and corresponding smartphone usage can reflect and predict participants’ daily patterns. Information and communication technology providers can provide college students with personalized services such as cellular data support in different parts of the day and different types of days. Future research can extend to other user groups for their information communication requirements.