Research on the follow-up actions of college students' mobile search

Abstract

This paper focuses on the follow-up actions triggered by college students' mobile searches, which involved 30 participants conducting an uncontrolled experiment in fifteen days. We collected the mobile phone usage data by an app called AWARE, and combined with structured diary and interviews to perform a quantitative and qualitative study. The results showed that, there were three categories of follow-up actions and majority of these actions occurred within one hour after the initial search session. We also found that participants often conducted follow-up actions with different apps, and certain information needs triggered more follow-up actions. We finally discussed the characteristics and the causes of these actions, and stated further studies which include comparing follow-up actions triggered by mobile search and that of Web search, and building a model for the follow-up actions.