Is the Smartphone Participation Affecting the Web Survey Experience?

The last years’ worldwide spread of mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) considerably encouraged the mobile participation to web surveys. These devices are different from PCs, e.g. in terms of screen size and portability. In particular, we expect that the higher portability makes respondents more likely to participate from public spaces and/or in the presence of other people. This could affect the survey answers, mostly when sensitive topics are asked. This paper focuses on the comparison of PCs and smartphones and is based on a two-wave experiment that involved 1,800 panellists for Spain of the Netquest opt-in panel. We studied to what extent the locations for the PC and the mobile participation are different and how this factor can affect how respondents felt about the participation itself.