Checking In: Women Lead in Using Location-Based Services
Female smartphone users are edging out men in using location-based services like Facebook Places and foursquare, according to a new survey. What's surprising about this is that previous research on mobile privacy and security found that women are more sensitive than men about disclosing personal information such as where they are.
Overall, 50.8 percent of mobile phone users who are check-in service users are female; men trail at 49.2 percent.
Checking in to location-based services is still not a mainstream activity, but adoption is increasing, especially among smartphone users — those most likely to use the apps that check-ins are typically tied to. According to comScore, 7.1 percent of all mobile users and 17.6 percent of smartphone users accessed check-in services in March.
Users of check-in services were more likely than the overall smartphone population to be female, under 35 in age and full-time students. Only a third of current users are 35 and older and less than half (46.6 percent) hold down full-time jobs. Nearly 60 percent of check-in users were between 18 and 34.
Smartphone users who check in to location-based services also scored higher for participation in every other mobile activity studied by comScore. Check-in service users are out in front of the general smartphone population from overall browser and application usage to ad recall and mobile shopping activities.
Check-in service users also showed a high propensity for accessing retail-related destinations on their mobile devices. Nearly one-third of users accessed online retail sites on their mobiles, while one-fourth accessed shopping guides. And they were 86 percent more likely to access mobile travel services than average smartphone users.