MobileActive08
Session: Use of Mobiles by Low-Income Youth: Getting the Numbers Straight
Description
The opportunities associated with increasingly ubiquitous access to mobile technologies by the youth in Sub-Saharan Africa are widely understood, but unfortunately little to no quantitative data is available for this age group.
Tino Kreutzer from the University of Cape Town will present preliminary findings and discuss the methodological challenges of an ongoing research project which aims to assess mobile access to media and the Internet among low-income South African youth.
In particular, this session will present the results of the pilot study, a survey of low-income black South African youth at an urban township school. It suggests that a sweeping majority of respondents are very intense cell phone users, dwarfing usage of any other technology such as traditional computers. The findings indicate that virtually all respondents (97%) were found to have used a cell phone on the previous day for at least one communication, information-seeking, gaming or multimedia activity. The high usage patterns and expenditures on conventional telephony are particularly surprising given the low income levels that prevail in the area.
The pilot suggests that the majority of urban South Africans in this age group can and do access the Internet via their phones (83% were found to so on a typical day). The popularity of instant messaging and other Internet applications within this group suggests that their use of the Internet differs from those whose access is primarily via desktop devices. This finding has significant implications for mobile media and learning applications, as does the fact that a majority of students also reported gaming on their phones on a typical day (53%).
The paper of the pilot study can be found at http://emerge2008.net/access/metaobj/content/group/emerge2008/Presentations/opening worlds/Mobile Technology Usage
Tino Kreutzer from the University of Cape Town will present preliminary findings and discuss the methodological challenges of an ongoing research project which aims to assess mobile access to media and the Internet among low-income South African youth.
In particular, this session will present the results of the pilot study, a survey of low-income black South African youth at an urban township school. It suggests that a sweeping majority of respondents are very intense cell phone users, dwarfing usage of any other technology such as traditional computers. The findings indicate that virtually all respondents (97%) were found to have used a cell phone on the previous day for at least one communication, information-seeking, gaming or multimedia activity. The high usage patterns and expenditures on conventional telephony are particularly surprising given the low income levels that prevail in the area.
The pilot suggests that the majority of urban South Africans in this age group can and do access the Internet via their phones (83% were found to so on a typical day). The popularity of instant messaging and other Internet applications within this group suggests that their use of the Internet differs from those whose access is primarily via desktop devices. This finding has significant implications for mobile media and learning applications, as does the fact that a majority of students also reported gaming on their phones on a typical day (53%).
The paper of the pilot study can be found at http://emerge2008.net/access/metaobj/content/group/emerge2008/Presentations/opening worlds/Mobile Technology Usage
Session Details
| Speakers: |
Tino Kreutzer
|
| Date: | Tuesday, October 14, 2008 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM |
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| Track: | Mini Talk |
| Location: | Marathon B |
