[1] “Regardless of culture, when people interact with PCTs, they tend to standardise infrastructure and gravitate towards consistent tastes and universal features,” Katz states.
In an effort to explain the patterns associated with PCTs, Katz and Aakhus advanced the concept of Apparatgeist by identifying several cross-cultural trends in the adoption, use and conceptualization of mobile phones.
"[4][clarification needed] Katz and Aakhus argue that individuals tend to "standardize infrastructure and gravitate towards consistent tastes and universal features.
"[6] Pertaining to how PCTs bring about the Apparatgeist: Yuan focuses on the effects of Chinese culture on mobile communication usage behavior and patterns.
[9] Tojib et al. applies both the Apparatgeist and domestication theory as a theoretical groundwork to show how the symbolic use of smartphones brings about positive effect on user attachment to mobile phones.
Apparatgeist is used as a theoretical basis to emphasize shared commonalities in developmental challenges that adolescents face, particularly when it came to the similarities in mobile phone gratifications regardless different cultural contexts.
The research concludes that a complex relationship is visible among the “structural and social-psychological backgrounds of youths, developmental tasks, and the functionalities of mobile media technologies as they are recognized in a particular time and context.”[12] Tan et al. conducted a multi-method study to understand whether email and SMS—two types of PCTs—were more or less suitable for different environments.
By sampling college students from Hawaii, Japan, Sweden, Taiwan and the US, Campbell concluded that although there are apparent varieties in communication practices in different cultures, there is also an inherent universality in the way people interact through mobile phones that stem from a basic human need.