Department of Policy and Planning Sciences
Discussion Paper Series

No.1332

 The Contribution of Mobile Information Services to
Improve the Quality of Young User’s Lives Based on
Bottom-Up Spillover Theory: A Case Study on Japanby Qazi M. GHYAS, and Fumiyo N. KONDO

Jul 2015

UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA
Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8573
JAPANThe Contribution of Mobile Information Services to Improve the Quality ofYoung User’s Lives Based on Bottom-up Spillover Theory:
A Case Study on Japan
Qazi Mahdia Ghyas1) and Fumiyo N. Kondo2)
1. Introduction
A mobile information service (MIS) is defined as use of the Internet via a handheld
device (Cho et al. 2005). The consumer pays for the desired mobile content or services. These
services include mobile searches, news and sports information, music and video downloads,
e-mail, instant messages, etc. Mobile information system is usually embedded in the user’s
life (Tamminen et al., 2004). The performance of a traditional information system (IS) is
usually measured in terms of how effective it is at achieving specific need and goals (e.g.,
Gefen et al., (2003)) or how satisfying it is to use for particular tasks (e.g., Bhattacherjee andPremkumar (2004). One of the goals of any technology should be to increase the quality of its
users’ lives (Straub and Watson, 2001). The needs and uses of mobile information services
may differ on the basis of age. If there are differences present in service needs between young
and older, mobile companies need to vary their international marketing strategies and tactics.
Prior studies of mobile computing have employed satisfaction (Choi et al., 2005) andintention to use (Yang, 2005) to investigate the impact of mobile computing technologies.
These outcome variables measure users’ feelings or attitudes at the time they use the system,
rather than the impact of the system on their overall quality of life (QoL). Very few studies
directly addressing the impact of IS on overall QoL. Rahman et. a., (2005) presented a pictureof conditions of the world with respect to such interrelated domains of QOL. Choi et al.
(2007a) proposed eleven relationships between Individual Contribution and Overall
Contribution of quality of life in Korea and Japan and found some of them had stronger
influence on the Overall Contribution.
There is also very few studies on how young’s quality of life has been improved owing to
the mobile technology. At present we have little sense of how much MIS affects young’squality of life, because, as said, quality of life has largely been ignored in mainstream IS
literature. At present we do not even know into which domains of a young user’s life effecthas. Few studies have actually developed to analyze the relationship between technology and
QoL. The main goal of this study is to construct a theoretical model that can reliably andvalidly measure the relationship between MIS and QoL. We designate “contribution to QoL”
as an alternative outcome variable for MIS and examine, through a consecutive empirical
study in Japan, whether and how MIS contribute to young users’ QoL.
Therefore, we examine the contribution of individual life domains to student’s “QoL”
after using MIS for Japan which has an expanding mobile market. We ground our researchframework in two. First one is the bottom-up spillover theory (explained in section 2.3) by
Choi et al. (2007a) with their eleven individual life domains contributions of MIS to QoL
within individual domains may affect the contribution of MIS to overall QoL. These life
domains are: leisure life, family life, friend life, cultural life, work life, community life,
consumer life, financial life, health and safety life, and self-life. Second, our newly proposedfour individual life domains contributions of MIS to QoL: Health monitoring life,
informational life, educational life and trustworthy life has conceptualized from previous
studies (Choi et al. 2007b; Jing and Andy, 2010; and Nguyen et al. 2010). More details will
be provided later.
The rest of the article is organized as follows. The next sections will describe the1) Department of Social Systems and Management, Graduate School of Systems & Information
Engineering, University of Tsukuba, Japan
2) Division of Policy and Planning Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Information and Systems
University of Tsukuba, Japanoverview of quality of life, individual life domains with new ones, bottom-up spillover theory,
contribution to QoL. These are followed by sections on methodology and statistical results.
The last sections present a summary of the discussion, conclusions, implications anddirections for future research.
2. Theoretical Background
2.1.

Quality of Life
The term QOL has been defined differently by various scholars. McCall (1975) defines
QOL as ‘necessary conditions for happiness’, while Terhune (1973) defines it as subjective
well-being. There are many terms that are used to represent well-being. Commonly used
terms are QOL, standards of living, human well-being, and welfare. QoL is a measure of how
happy people or how fulfilled they are in terms of their various wants and needs.
Studies of QoL have been conducted in diverse areas, including marketing (e.g. Sirgy,
1996, health (e.g. Leung et al. 2004), and education (e.g. Huebner and Gilman, 2002).
However, only a few studies have been conducted in the area telecommunication services foryoung user. Here we will try to measure the contribution of mobile information services
empirically and will provide a theoretical model that explicitly linked MIS and QoL for
young users in Japan.
2.2.

Individual life domains
QoL researchers have identified a number of distinct life domains that encompass thevarious places, things, activities, roles, and relationships in which a person typically finds
himself or herself involved (Andrews and Withey, 1976). They propose that people actuallyexperience and store the various events of their life in distinct domains, including leisure life,
family life, friend life, cultural life, work life, community life, consumer life, financial life,
health life, safety life, and self-life. These eleven life domains have been examined formobile data services by Choi et al. (2007a) concerning Japan and Korea. Our newly added
life domains are educational life (Andrews and Withey, 1976, Choi et al. 2007b),
health-monitoring life (Jing and Andy, 2010), trustworthy life (Jing and Andy, 2010) andinformational life (Nguyen et al., 2010) which are discussed below:
Educational Life: Word translation anytime anywhere, reading e-books via mobile, canimprove the learning and teaching activities of mobile users.
Health Monitoring Life: User’s require special health vigilance, including monitoring of
their physical and emotional conditions and the fulfilment of some medication agenda. Thus,
it is necessary to adopt remote monitoring/vigilance of the persons' health state, in order toimprove the quality of life.
Informational Life: It is necessarily to provide information maintenance, such as medicationand food constraints, personal interests and preferences, news and weather information
through mobile to improve user’s lives.
Trustworthy Life: Privacy and trustworthiness from mobile service provider, can improve
the quality of life of users.
We are interested in here to understand how MIS contributes to quality of life than in how
generally satisfied people are with their lives. As the use of the mobile phone blurred theboundary between home and work (Haddon, 1998), MIS can be used crossed time and place(Palen, 2002). Therefore, MIS has the potential to affect many life domains. Moreover, we
did not know yet which domains were most relevant to MIS in different countries anddifferent users. Therefore, our study for Japanese young users investigated the following life
domains show in table 1 which established in the previous literature.

Table 1

Life Domains

Life Domains

Defining Activities, Circumstances, Events

CulturalActivities and relationships with cultural richness

LeisureNon-working activities, spare time activities, recreation

Educational

Learning and teaching activities

Consumer
Financial

Purchase, preparation, consumption, possession, maintenance and disposition activitiesof goods and services
Activities for pay and revenues

HealthActivities pertaining to mental and physical health

SafetyActivities for personal safety

FamilyActivities with parents, children, and home

FriendActivities with colleagues and friends

Self

Activities for self-representation and self-efficacy

Community

Activities with on-line community

Health Monitoring

Activities to monitor own health care

Trustworthy

Activities of privacy and trustworthy

Informational

Activities to get information

Work

Mental and physical activities required by jobs and task

2.3.

Bottom-up spillover theory
The bottom-up spillover theory (Andrews and Withey, 1976) is a model of therelationship between individual life domains and quality of overall life. The theory indicatesthat quality of life in individual domains has spillover effects on overall quality of life. In
other words, happiness in subordinate individual life domains can spill over to produce
superordinate overall happiness (Andrews and Withey, 1976). The bottom-up spillover theory
has been concretized into the satisfaction hierarchy model. The premise of this model is that
overall life satisfaction is functionally related to satisfaction within each of the individual life
domains, which can be measured by satisfaction with specific events in each life domain(Sirgy, 2002).
2.4.

Contribution to Quality of LifeThe basic premise of the bottom-up spillover theory is that satisfaction levels within
individual life domains affect the overall level of life satisfaction (Sirgy, 2002). This
relationship between Individual Contribution and Overall Contribution is displayed as ourresearch model in Fig. 2. The bottom layer of our model represents the contribution of MIS toquality of life in those domains (henceforth, Individual Contribution). The contribution of
MIS to quality of individual life domains can be measured by the perceived contribution of
specific use-experience of MIS services in that domain. The top layer in our model represents
the specific contribution of MIS to overall QoL (henceforth, Overall Contribution). Like
Individual Contribution, Overall Contribution is conceptualized as the perceived contributionof MIS services to overall QoL.
Past studies suggest that IT does have an influence on users’ QoL. For example,
Heijden’s (2004) study of adoption behavior for hedonic systems implies that IT may haveeffects on leisure or culture life. Bhattacherjee’s (2001) account of users’ continuance
behavior in online banking systems implies that such systems affect QoL in the domain offinancial life. Choi et al. (2007a) measured the contribution of a mobile data service (MDS)
technology to the quality of users’ lives. They have examined eleven individual life domains
for Korean and Japanese respondents. Whereas, we will try to examine fifteen life domains

with our proposed four life domains.
Our measures concern spillover of contribution to QoL by MIS. Therefore, contributionsof MIS to QoL within individual domains should affect the contribution of MIS to overall
QoL. The research model of Choi et al. (2007a) with their original eleven life domains has
shown in figure 1. With our proposed four new life domains is displayed as our researchmodel in figure 2. We expect that improvement of QoL in each life domain (original andadditional) after using MIS will positively influence overall QoL for young Japanese mobile
users.

Fig. 1. Relationship between individual contribution and overall contribution from Choi etal. (2007a)Fig. 2. Relationship between individual contribution and overall contribution with proposed
life domains

3. Methodology
3.1.

Data
A survey was conducted in Japan of 245 mobile phone users at a university in Ibaraki. An
online questionnaire was distributed. The Japanese survey was conducted in Ibaraki at theend of 2012. We used responses from users who were 20-40 years for this research. Major
respondents were young adults as it has been found that the mobile phone has become a key
information technology for youth (de Chenecey, 2002). We eliminated some responses which
had missing values. Therefore, after the elimination, in table 1 there were 189 respondents todo the analysis for Japan, 2012.
Our demographic values for Japan have some differences from Choi et al. (2007a)
concerning Korea and Japan. They had 89% Korean respondents of age group below 30 years.
On the other hand, they had 17% Japanese respondents’ age of below 30 years. We have 97%
Japanese respondents who are below 30 years old. The age of our sample has similarities with
their sample for Korea but different from their Japan sample. In their study, 55-56%
respondents were male for Korea and Japan. However, 72% of respondents in our study are
male, so that our sample is skewed in gender. Demographic information about the effective
participants is presented in Table 2. They conducted a large-scale online survey in 2005-06
before the introduction of 3G services with diverse mobile user groups who had different
technological, educational and economic profiles. On the other hand, our online survey was
conducted in 2012 among students in a university when mobile data services have adopted
much and who have almost same technological, educational and economic profiles. We hopethat the difference of gender, age, time and user group may affect our results compare to
them.
Questions measuring Individual Contribution in the fifteen life domains were based on
the MIS use experiences. Our initial survey items for eleven original life domains wereadapted from Choi et al. (2007a). The items of our additional four life domains were adopted
from Andrews and Withey (1976); Jing and Andy (2010) and Nguyen et al. (2010). We chose
to use the formative indicators elicited in order to reflect concrete use experiences with MIS
because our theoretical foundation, the Bottom-up Spillover Theory, required highly specific
events and experiences at the bottom of the satisfaction hierarchy model. Subjects were asked
to rate how much they agree that each specific experience of using MIS contributes to thequality of life in the corresponding individual life domains. We constructed questions
measuring Overall Contribution of MIS to QoL as reflective indicators based on theSatisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), which is one of the most widely used scales in QoL
research, with high internal consistency and test-retest reliability (Pavot and Diener, 1993).
We used the following sets of 7-point Likert scales: Strongly disagree/strongly agree forindividual and overall contribution. The survey questions are shown in Appendix 1.
Table 2

Demographics of Respondents

Category

Values

Japan
2012

In %

GenderMale

137

FemaleAge

In %Japan (Choi etal. 2007a)

In %

72%

Korea
(Choi etal. 2007a)
507

56%

569

55%

52

28%

397

44%

469

45%

Under 19 years

32

17%

177

20%

5

1%

20-29

151

80%

616

69%

174

16%

30-40

6

3%

96

11%

462

45%

Over 40 years

N/A

N/A

18

2%

397

38%

3.2.

Analytical Method
The validity and reliability of the measures were tested using Partial Least Squares (PLS),a method well suited to handle both formative indicators (for Individual Contribution) andreflective indicators (for Overall Contribution) (Chin, 1998). The research models wereanalyzed for Japan 2012 via PLS by using the statistical software smart-PLS version 2.0 M3.
PLS also has been used to construct a theory of mobile data service contribution to QoL by
Choi et al. (2007a) concerning Japanese and Korean mobile users.
3.3.

Validity and Reliability of the Measures
There are two types of measurement scale in structural equation modeling, i.e., formativeor reflective. In the research by Choi et al. (2007), both reflective and formative
measurements were present in the same model. PLS is appropriate for handling bothformative indicators and reflective indicators (Chin, 1998).
Because the criteria for assessing reflective and formative constructs are different, we
assess the two types of constructs separately. In PLS, loadings represent the influence ofindividual scale items on reflective constructs (Bollen and Lennox, 1991). For reflective
measurement scale, their indicator reliability, internal consistency reliability, or discriminant
validity should be fully examined (Hair et al. 2013). Therefore, In order to assess thereliability and validity of the reflective constructs, we checked the outer loadings, composite
reliability (CR), Cronbach ! coefficient and average variance extracted (AVE) for Overall
Contribution in table 3. The results indicating the convergent validity at the indicator level
and construct level and the internal consistency of the indicators.
Table 3
Reflective
Indicator
Overall
Contribution

Reliability and validity of overall contribution
Items

CR "0.70

AVE "0.50

Cronbach ! " 0.70

Loading "0.70

OVR 1

0.93

0.78

0.90

0.91

t-value at
p <0.001
90.18

OVR 2

0.93

108.74

OVR 3

0.93

108.73

OVR 4

0.75

25.27

Regarding the formative construct, In PLS, weights represent the comparable influenceon formative constructs (Bollen and Lennox, 1991). Thus, we examine the formative item’s
weights, multicolinearity and discriminant validity of the formative construct. In a formative
measurement model, the problem of indicator collinearity may occur if the indicators arehighly correlated to each other. We have generated VIF and Tolerance values for collinearity
checking. The Collinearity statistics as shown in Table 4, indicating that multi-collinearity is
not severe (Hair et al. 2013). We used the standard Bootstrapping procedure of 5000 samples
recommended by Hair et al. (2013) to test convergent validity. The weights and t-statistics ofall formative indicators in table 5, found to bear significant relationships within thecorresponding life domains. Moreover, the weights for each of the question items are positive,
which indicates that measures of Individual Contribution also were found to have theappropriate level of convergent validity.

Table 4

Collinearity statistics of formative constructs

Independent Variables

Collinearity Statistics
Tolerance > 0.20

VIF

Community Life

0.552

<5
1.81

Consumer Life

0.449

2.228

Cultural Life

0.524

1.909

Educational Life

0.453

2.207

Family Life

0.516

1.939

Financial Life

0.546

1.832

Friend Life

0.47

2.127

Health Life

0.475

2.103

Health Monitoring Life

0.48

2.083

Informational Life

0.363

2.757

Leisure Life

0.385

2.597

Safety Life

0.405

2.467

Self Life

0.537

1.864

Trustworthy Life

0.389

2.567

Work Life

0.455

2.196

Dependent Variable: Overall contribution

We tested nomological validity of the model with and without our additional four life
domains. We tested whether domain-specific contribution of MIS to QoL had a significant
relationship with Overall Contribution of MIS to QoL. The coefficient of determination, R2
was 0.58 for model 2, indicating acceptable fit in table 6. The fifteen individual life domains
moderately explain 58% of the variance in overall contribution.
Meanwhile, predictive relevance is another aspect that can be explored for the innermodel. The obtained Stone-Geisser’s (Q!) value (i.e., cross-validated redundancy measures)for overall contribution was 0.42 for model 2 in table 6, which indicates large predictive
relevance. Regarding the overall quality of the PLS structural model, we computed the valueof the Goodness of Fit (GoF) (Tenenhaus et al. 2005), which is shown in table 6. The GoF, Q!
and R2 values for model 2 are larger than those for model 1, resulting in our proposed modelcomparatively a better model. So, our newly added four life domains in model 2 are useful toforecast overall life and Overall Contribution and Individual Contribution were found to haveappropriate levels of reliability and validity for Japan.

Table 5

Reliability and validity of individual contribution

Formative Indicators
Health Life

Health Monitoring Life
Work Life

Safety Life

Financial Life

Consumer Life

Family Life

Cultural Life

Friend Life

Community Life
Self Life
Informational Life

Trustworthy Life

Educational Life

Leisure Life

Table 6

Items
HEL 1
HEL 2
HEL 3
HML 1
HML 2
WOR 1
WOR 2
WOR 3
SAF 1
SAF 2
SAF 3
FIN 1
FIN 2
FIN 3
FIN 4
CSR 1
CSR 2
CSR 3
CSR 4
FAM 1
FAM 2
FAM 3
FAM 4
CUL 1
CUL 2
CUL 3
CUL 4
CUL 4
FRI 1
FRI 2
FRI 3
COML 1COML 2
SEL 1
SEL 2
IL 1
IL 2
IL 3
TWL 1
TWL 2
TWL 3
EL 1
EL 2
EL 3
LSRL 1LSRL 2LSRL 3

CR "0.70
0.87

0.92
0.86

0.83

0.91

0.87

0.87

0.92

0.90

0.94
0.84
0.86

0.86

0.89

0.91

Weight
0.17
0.64
0.36
0.04
0.98
0.56
0.12
0.51
0.67
0.26
0.28
0.28
0.19
0.44
0.34
0.14
0.32
0.63
0.10
0.34
0.31
0.46
0.15
0.49
0.35
0.06
0.08
0.19
0.19
0.69
0.24
0.57
0.50
0.95
0.12
0.52
0.57
0.06
0.81
0.08
0.23
0.50
0.38
0.29
0.39
0.45
0.31

t-value
1.48
5.14
2.53
0.23
9.57
5.72
1.47
4.69
6.68
2.61
3.37
1.98
1.18
3.43
2.18
1.23
2.85
5.37
1.08
3.06
2.41
3.64
0.97
3.79
2.58
0.55
0.47
1.90
1.70
6.05
2.12
4.04
3.53
16.25
1.02
5.28
5.49
0.78
8.75
0.88
1.91
5.85
3.62
2.56
3.70
4.57
3.17

Model selection criteria for each model

Model Selection Criteria
Model 1 from Choi et al. (2007a)R2 of
endogenous
construct
0.54

Q!

GoF

0.40

0.65

Model 2 with our additional four life domains

0.58

0.42

0.67

4. Results
4.1.

Contribution of MIS to QoL for Japan
According to the theoretical model in Fig. 2, the Individual Contribution of MIS will
influence the Overall Contribution of MIS. In other words, if people feel that MIS improves
their QoL in individual domains, they will also believe that MIS improves their overall QoL.
However, we do not know which of the fifteen life domains are more closely related to theoverall QoL. In order to explore these issues, we conducted a PLS analysis using the
Bootstrap method of 5000 samples that is recommended by Hair et al. (2013) and estimatedthe path coefficients between Individual Contribution and Overall Contribution in Table 7.
The results from Japan indicate that contributions to six individual life domains had
significant impacts on the overall contribution of MIS. In other words, if MIS can contributeto the QoL in the six life domains, it will have a high possibility of improving the overall
QoL of young Japanese respondents. Contribution to the Informational life has the highest
influence on the Overall Contribution with # = 0.19; t = 2.97; p < 0.001, followed by culture
life (# = 0.149; t = 4.273; p < 0.001), friend life (# = 0.17; t = 2.70; p < 0.001), leisure life (#= 0.15; t = 2.84; p < 0.001), educational life (# = 0.11; t = 2.34; p < 0.05) and work life (# =0.10; t = 2.02; p < 0.05). As the t-statistics, all these path coefficients are significant at thelevel of 5% or less.
Our result for Japan has some similarities with those from Choi et al. (2007) for Korea
and Japan. Choi et al. (2007) measured the contribution of a mobile data service technology
to the quality of users’ lives. From our Japan results, contribution to the cultural and leisurelife has the influence on the Overall Contribution. These results are the same as those weresignificant in Choi et al., (2007) for Japan also. As the country is the same, Japan, we got
similar result probably due to same cultural and economy. We also have some similarities incase of non-significant results. Consumer life, health life and safety life were not thedeterminant of overall contribution in Choi et al. (2007) for both Japan and Korea, we also
found the same for Japan 2012.
Our results for Japan have some differences compare to those from Choi et al. (2007a) for
Korea and Japan. They got significant effect of financial life and self life to the overall
contribution for Japan. But we get insignificant result on those. This may be possibly due tothe characteristics of sample such as gender ratio. Another difference is on Friend life, which
is significant in our result, but insignificant for Japan as well as Korea in those of Choi et al.
(2007a). All of our respondents are students, so, friend life is a focus for them. The
contribution to work life in Choi et al. (2007a) for Japan was found to be negatively related to
the Overall Contribution but in our result, it is opposite, positively related. Our respondents inJapan were in their twenties, it is reasonable that work life as part-timers may be important
for them. Those differences indicate the sample difference on gender, age, or job status andtiming.
Out of our additional four life domains, informational and educational life domains become
significant for Japan in our results. Since the respondents all are students, MIS has strong
impact on their educational lives by searching dictionary, on-line translation, on-line
education and etc. MIS also has strong impact on their informational life by searching news,
weather, maps, personal information and etc. Our data was from 2012 at the later adoption
stage of 3G/4G services, so that mobile device has become a key device for information
gathering after the introduction of 3G/4G services. It helps user to get information via mobile
anytime and anywhere.

Table 7 Comparative analysis between Japan 2012 and Japan-Korea from Choi et al.
(2007) in terms of path coefficients
Hypotheses

Japan
2012

t-valueJapan(Choi et al.
2007)

t-value

Korea(Choi et al.
2007)

t-value

Cultural Lifeà Overall Life

0.18

4.08***

0.12

3.85***

0.02

0.27

Leisure Lifeà Overall Life

0.15

2.84***

0.11

3.39***

0.06

1.63

Community Lifeà Overall life

0.08

1.78

0.08

2.13

0.15

4.27***

Consumer Lifeà Overall Life

0.07

1.32

0.09

2.05

0.05

1.52

Family Lifeà Overall Life

-0.08

1.66

0.02

0.94

0.14

3.20***

Health Lifeà Overall Life

0.10

1.68

!0.00

0.31

0.00

0.03

Safety Lifeà Overall Life

-0.01

0.22

0.02

0.55

0.02

0.67

Self Lifeà Overall Life

-0.08

1.65

0.37

0.33

9.34***

Financial Lifeà Overall Life

0.00

0.09

0.23

10.84***
6.34***

0.14

3.87***

Friend Lifeà Overall Life

0.17

2.70***

0.03

0.78

0.06

1.57

Work Lifeà Overall Life

0.10

2.02**!0.06

2.52***

0.04

1.21

Health Monitoring Lifeà Overall Life

0.09

1.64

-

-

-

-

Educational Lifeà Overall Life

0.11

2.34**----

Informational Lifeà Overall Life

0.19

2.97***

-

-

-

-

Trustworthy Lifeà Overall Life

-0.02

0.45

-

-

-

-

R2 value

0.58

0.63

0.51

Note: ***p <0.001; **p <0.05

5. Discussion
This study has two variables (Individual Contribution and Overall Contribution) tomeasure the contribution of mobile information services to users’ quality of life. Results fromthe two consecutive studies clearly indicate that two variables are valid and reliable in thebottom-up spillover theory. As users perceived a stronger contribution of MIS in specific life
domains, they perceived a stronger contribution of MIS to their overall quality of life. The
Individual Contribution in the cultural, leisure, informational, friend, educational and work
domain had the greatest impact on the Overall Contribution among Japanese young users.
Cultural and leisure life domains are significant as these in Choi et al. (2007a) for Japan.
They explained the strong effects of leisure and cultural life for the Japanese people by thehigher national wealth (GNP and GDP) of Japan. People with greater monetary resources are
more interested in their leisure and cultural life. Although our data set was for 2012 but we
got similar result because of the stable economy of the same country, Japan.
Contribution of MIS to QoL in the Informational life-our newly added life domain; has
the strongest impact on overall contribution of MIS. According to the proposed theory by
Wilson (2006), information seeking behavior is triggered from physiological,
socio-psychological, and cognitive needs as perceived by the information user. Wilson (2006)
especially stressed the importance of studying the users’ information needs and that suchneeds are embedded in the user life world, the user him/herself, his/her role (e.g. job tasks,care needs) and the environment. The information users in Japan may seek information fromdifferent sources. Mobile device is one of the greatest devices among choices to getinformation and Japanese young can improve their life by getting information anytime
anywhere through mobile devices.
Contribution of MIS to QoL in the friend life has stronger impact on overall contributionof MIS. Relationship with friends should be considered in any measure of QOL (Rahman etal. 2005). Satisfaction with friend life is an important element of an individual’s well-being infact when they are young adults. It is quite reasonable that, in most cases, an individual
young mobile user with strong friend ties will be happier by sending photos, contracting withfriends and congratulating friends on their birthday, etc.
Contribution of MIS to QoL in the educational domain has significant effect on overall
Contribution of MIS to QoL for Japan. But Choi et al. (2007b) did not get significant effectbetween the contribution of MDS to educational life and the contribution to overall for
Korean young users. They showed the reasons were poor usability of mobile devices inhibits
active participation, and their limited bandwidth precludes effective use of multimedia
broadcasting on online education. Our data set was for Japan 2012 when they are effective
3G/4G and iPhone users. So, mobile devices become effective media for online education ofyoung students. Hence, our result for educational life domain may become significant.
Contribution of MIS to QoL in work life has stronger impact on overall contribution of
MIS in our result. Rahman et al. (2005) identified the work life domains of depending on
what were considered to be the major element of well-being. Estimates of unemployment rateand combined first, second and third level school gross enrolment ratio are used to capturethe ‘extent of work and productive activity’ that exists in a country. Young citizens of Japanare productively engaged either in work employment, or engaged in the process of learning inschool.
6. Implications
The study has several implications. First, it has noted that six significant individual life
domains, specifically relevant to mobile computing environments that contribute in multiple
ways to various facets of a young user’s life. We recommend focusing on these life domains
for young mobile users. Second, it verifies the reliability and the convergent, divergent, andnomological validity of the original and our newly proposed life domains and through anempirical study. These life domains can be used in future studies to measure MIS
contribution to QoL.
This study firstly provides a framework to understand the contribution of MIS to young’squality of lives from the perspective of its actual user. The life domains proposed and verified
in our study can be used in future studies, to evaluate the potential of MIS to contribute toyoung user’s quality of life. If a firm intends to specialize in a specific life domain for youngusers, our findings on contribution of MIS to QoL can indicate what services will be used,with what goals, in what contexts, and can thus suggest which services will most improve
quality of life for their users. The results on the relationship between Domain- SpecificContribution of MIS to QoL and Overall Contribution of MIS to QoL will also help
companies allocate resources to the life domains that bear most strongly on overall quality oflife.
7. Limitations
Our study has some limitations. All of the respondents are young students who have goodeducation and knowledge in technology who had from a national university in Japan. Also,
they are convenience samples. Thus the results cannot be generalized to the whole populationin Japan. Moreover, our respondents in Japan were clustered on males in their twenties whichmight bias the survey results. Second, this study was conducted in Japan with Japanese MIS

users, and it is not clear whether the results can be applied to other countries. We recommend
an increased focus on the importance of age, gender, culture and economic characteristics infuture research.
8. Conclusion
This paper operationalized fifteen life domains with our newly added four life domains tomeasure the contribution of MIS to QOL across Japanese young students. We successfully
applied bottom-up spillover theory for the use of MIS by Japanese young users and found theimportance of information and educational life domains out of our proposed four life domains.
By using a model to measure the contributions of mobile information services to quality oflife with the original and our additional life domains, the research of Choi et al. (2007a) andthis research gave stable results after considering time difference. Out of these considered life
domains of the QOL, we showed that the perceived contribution of each use experience forthe following six life domains were found to be the key domains for Japanese young MIS
users: informational life, cultural life, friend life, leisure life, educational life and work life.
Our research also identified the importance of appropriateness of sample characteristics
such as gender, age, and culture/economy. A technology used in as many contexts as MIS
can enhance its users’ lives in numerous ways. To assess those contributions, however, weneed to know how they focused on specific tasks and functions for different user segments.
Our study takes a step in that direction by offering a practical basis for measuring thecontributions of mobile information services to quality of life for young MIS users.
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Appendix 1. Survey Questionnaire(A.1) Overall, how do you feel about mobile information services (MIS) and the overall
Quality of Life?
Overall Contribution

Items1) Using the MIS helps me make my life close to ideal. 2) Using the MDS improves thegeneral conditions of my life. 3) Using the MDS helps make my life more satisfying. 4)
Using the MDS helps me achieve important things in my life.

(A.2) Original individual life domains from Choi et al. (2007a)
Original
Domains
Cultural

LeisureConsumer

Financial

Life

Items
1) Purchasing movie or concert tickets over the MIS whenever I want, improves mycultural life; 2) Making reservations for movies and concerts through the MIS while I am
out improves my cultural life; 3) Getting discount vouchers through the MIS before goingto a restaurant or cinema improves my cultural life; 4) Getting movie information throughthe MIS on the street improves my cultural life; 5) When it’s too bothersome to go to thecinema, reserving tickets through the MIS improves my cultural life.
1) Using the MIS to lift my spirits when I am gloomy improves my leisure life; 2) Using
the MIS to spend my spare time while I am out helps my leisure life; 3) MIS help me tostay close with my personal interests, preferences and hobbies which improves leisure life.
1) Frequently checking prices through the MIS while I am shopping improves my life as aconsumer; 2) Buying goods through the MIS instead of actually going out for shopping
improves my life as a consumer; 3) Searching for information on goods I want to buy
through the MIS, improves my life as a consumer; 4) Exchanging goods over the MIS
improves my life as a consumer.
1) Using the MIS to send money electronically to another person when Iam away improves
my $nancial life; 2) Using the MIS to check my bank account improves my $nancial life;3) Using the MIS to buy and sell stocks/options instantly improves my $nancial life; 4)Making reservations for trains with low commissions on the MIS improves my financial
life.

Health1) Recording health data daily through the MIS improves my health life; 2) Using the MIS
to take the medical advice when I can’t use a PC improves my health life; 3) Instead ofgoing to the clinic or hospital, making an appointment by the MIS will improve my healthlife.

Safety1) Using the MIS to search my location when I get lost at a strange place improves mypersonal safety; 2) Searching for a safe route to my destination through the MIS late atnight improves my personal safety; 3) Being in contact with other people through the MIS
when I am alone improves my personal safety.

Family1) When I am concerned about my family members, searching for their current location
using the MIS improves my family life; 2) Getting in touch with my family members
through the MIS to relieve their worries improves my family life; 3) Sending photos to myfamily over the MIS help my family life; 4) To be in constant contact with my family when
I am away improves my family life.
1) Frequently sending photos to friends over the MIS improves my friendships; 2)
Frequently contacting friends through the MIS improves my friendships; 3) Congratulating
friends on their birthday over the MI improves my friendships.
1) Using the MIS to share my own photos with others improves my self-expression; 2)
Immediately upgrading to the latest services over the MIS increases my self-esteem.
1) Informing members of on-line community meeting dates over the MIS, improves mycommunity life; 2) Checking bulletin boards and e-mail from the on-line community over
the MIS improves my community life.
1) Searching for recruiting information through the MIS helps my work life; 2) Discussing
job-related issues with co-workers through the MIS helps my work life; 3) Working
through the MIS when I can’t use a PC helps my work life

FriendSelf
CommunityWork(A.3) Proposed individual life domains
Proposed
Domains
Trustworthy

Life

Information

Health Monitoring
Educational

Items1) Having trust on the Internet services by MIS, improves my trustworthy life; 2) Having
trust on paying for the on-line shopping via MIS, will improves mu trustworthy life; 3)
Having trust on MIS while I am reading, entertaining and getting information via internet,
will improves my trustworthy life.
1) MIS helps me to get information of news, weather, maps, etc. when I need which
improves my information life; 2) I can search personal information through MIS when I
need which improves my personal life; 3) at anytime, anywhere, be Searching information
at anytime, anywhere by the MIS is fully useful in order to improve my informational life
1) Using MIS to monitor blood pressure, glucose level, weight, food calorie etc. by own
self when I am home, improves my health life; 2) Using MIS in home for diet control andmedication agenda, etc., improves my health care1) Translate words through mobile dictionary anywhere anytime, improves myeducational life; 2) Reading newspapers, e-books through MIS, improves my educational
life; 3) to see the education program by the MIS when I cannot use the PC, will
improves my educational life.