Usage of smartphone among youth in India

A comparison between smartphone usage among youth in Tier-1 and Tier-2 Cities in India

Post under the series "Youth and eLearning in Digital India"

The Classification of Indian cities comprises a ranking system used by the Government of India. The earlier classification of cities was changed from A-1 to X, A, B-1 and B-2 to Y and C and unclassified cities to Z. X, Y and Z are more commonly known as Tier-1, Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities respectively.

Tier-1 Cities or Metros as we call them are Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune.

Tier-2 or Mini metro class cities are Agra, Ajmer, Aligarh, Allahabad, Amravati, Amritsar, Asansol, Aurangabad, Bareilly, Belgaum, Bhavnagar, Bhiwandi, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Bikaner, Bokaro Steel City, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Cuttack, Dehradun, Dhanbad, Durg-Bhilai Nagar, Durgapur, Erode, Faridabad, Firozabad, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Gulbarga, Guntur, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Gwalior, Hubli-Dharwad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Jammu, Jamnagar, Jamshedpur, Jhansi, Jodhpur, Kannur, Kanpur, Kakinada, Kochi, Kolhapur, Kollam, Kota, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Madurai, Malappuram, Malegaon, Mangalore, Meerut, Moradabad, Mysore, Nagpur, Nanded-Waghala, Nashik, Nellore, Noida, Patna, Pondicherry, Raipur, Rajkot, Rajahmundry, Ranchi, Rourkela, Salem, Sangli, Siliguri, Solapur, Srinagar, Surat, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirappalli, Tiruppur, Tirupati, Ujjain, Vadodara, Varanasi, Vasai-Virar City, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Warangal.

According to a survey done by TCS in the cities mentioned above, in year 2014-15, a whopping 72 percent of high school and above students own smartphones (compared to just 40 percent in 2011-12).

Out of these youth in metros has been using smartphones from quite a sometime and had formed a habit of using mobile based apps apart from the regular social networking and communication apps. Hence time they spend on the mobile is already occupied.

The youth in mini metros, on other hand, has newly acquired the smart phones and is rapidly forming habit of these apps, it’s easier to introduce more productive apps and mobile based e-learning to this demography as the time they spend on the mobile is largely unoccupied currently.

An interactive, engaging e-learning activity is more adaptable to this group of youths. The most vital requirement for such app which can deliver e-learning is it should capture students attention in fun way along with imparting knowledge and value add to their mobile usage.