This article analyzes the relation between the use of rapidly spreading mobile terminals (smartphones and tablets) and TV viewing, based on the results of the “Survey on TV Viewing in Society Undergoing Mobile Shift” conducted in March 2017. To analyze the survey, we first defined the relationship between people and mobile terminals as “mobile involvement,” taking into consideration not only the physical usage but also what people feel through the use of the devices. Various scenes involving mobile terminals were grouped into 24 “mobile involvement” variables,with which we conducted a multivariate analysis and reduced them to the four factors: “utility,” “attachment,” “communication,” and “criticism/avoidance.”
Then, we categorized mobile terminal users into five groups, according to the combination of the above four factors. As a result, it is revealed that media usage, attitudes towards media tools, attitudes towards daily life, and values in communication and information gathering differ from one group to another. We also found that mobile terminal users’ attitudes towards television were diversifying: for example, among a group of people who “have strong attachment to mobile terminals and cannot part with them,” nearly 90% of them think television is important and more than 80% love to watch television, which shows people in this group perceive television favorably. It is worth noting that the younger the generation is, the more people belong to this group as well as to a group of people who “highly value communication and frequently use social networking services.” They can be regarded as the typical groups in the age of smartphones.