Bello-Bravo Julia, Brooks Ian, Lutomia Anne Namatsi, Bohonos Jeremy, Medendorp John, Pittendrigh Barry
Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, Anthony Hall, 474 S Shaw Ln, Rm 3370 East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA.
School of Information Science, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, IL 616 East Green Street, Suite 210, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.
Heliyon. 2021 Mar 31;7(3):e06595. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06595. eCollection 2021 Mar.
Despite considerable research on YouTube as a digital media platform, little research to date has quantified the device-type used to that online media. Analyzing access-device data for videos on one YouTube video channel-Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO), which produces educational content specifically accessible to low- or non-literate, poor, or geographically isolated learners in less developed areas of the world-the results identify the historical moments between 2015 and 2017 when mobile/smartphones, both globally and by region, crossed a tipping point to surpass all other ICT devices (including desktop PCs, laptops, and other Internet-accessing technologies) as the primary device-type for accessing SAWBO videos. Specifically, data from January 2013 to June 2018 obtained for SAWBO's YouTube channel were sampled to capture and distinguish the access device-type used and then summarized in broad global and regional categories. The tipping point, as the date where the percentage of views from mobile phones was equivalent to the percentage of views from computers, were also calculated globally and by region. Besides documenting this critical global-historical moment, the results also have implications for mass digital-messaging generally and mobile-based public service learning specifically.
尽管对YouTube作为一个数字媒体平台已有大量研究，但迄今为止，几乎没有研究对用于访问该在线媒体的设备类型进行量化。通过分析一个YouTube视频频道——无国界科学动画（SAWBO）上视频的访问设备数据，该频道制作的教育内容专门面向世界欠发达地区的低识字率或不识字、贫困或地理上孤立的学习者，研究结果确定了2015年至2017年期间的历史时刻，在全球和各地区，移动/智能手机超过了所有其他信息通信技术设备（包括台式电脑、笔记本电脑和其他互联网接入技术），成为访问SAWBO视频的主要设备类型。具体而言，对SAWBO的YouTube频道在2013年1月至2018年6月期间获取的数据进行抽样，以捕捉和区分所使用的访问设备类型，然后按广泛的全球和地区类别进行汇总。还计算了全球和各地区的临界点，即手机观看次数的百分比与电脑观看次数的百分比相等的日期。除了记录这一关键的全球历史时刻外，研究结果对一般的大众数字信息传播，特别是基于移动设备的公共服务学习也具有启示意义。
