Household Technology Use: Integrating Household Life Cycle and the Model of Adoption of Technology in Households

Recently, the model of adoption of technology in households (MATH) was developed and tested in the context of household per­ sonal computer (PC) adoption. In this study, we apply MATH to predict personal computer (PC) use. We conducted a nationwide survey including 370 households that owned at least one PC. Re­ sults indicate that attitudinal beliefs are extremely important in determining use of a PC in the household. In contrast to previ­ ous work examining adopters, normative and control beliefs were not significant in predicting use. Furthermore, several determi­ nants of adoption that were important at different stages of the household life cycle were found nonsignificant in predicting use for the same stages of the household life cycle.Overall, the results demonstrate that the belief structure for household PC use is dif­ ferent from that of household PC adoption. Further, the results provide additional evidence regarding the importance of including household life cycle in studies of household technology adoption and use