New Paths: Exploring Mobile-Centric Internet Use in South Africa

The title of this workshop, ‘beyond voice’, is illustrative of one of the central questions currently surrounding mobile communication in the developing world. Put simply, there is a great deal of enthusiasm around the notion that a large group of users will access the internet for the first time via data enabled mobile handsets. Recent estimates from India, for example (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, 2007), suggest there may be more mobile Internet connections than traditional PC Internet connections operational in the country. Concurrently, high-end smart phones promise browsing experiences which are steadily closing the gaps in speed and ease of use which have hampered earlier incarnations of the mobile internet, such as WAP. But the raw enthusiasm, the aggregate statistics, and the glossy marketing images from the top-end of handset markets fail to capture the reality of mobile internet use in the developing world. The crux of this paper’s argument is that the research community knows comparatively little about this supposed community of users who access and use the Internet exclusively via mobile phones. We know little about who they are, how they discover and access the mobile internet, and how the mobile internet fits into their lives. This paper reports on ongoing qualitative/exploratory research in low income communities in urban South Africa. Through convenience and snowball sampling, the researchers have sought out ‘early adopters’ among mobile-only internet users. The analysis of the interviews will delineate and describe distinctive new “paths” to Internet use that largely bypass PCs. We draw on a domestication approach (Haddon, 2003; Hahn & Kibora, 2008; Silverstone & Hirsch, 1992) to move beyond an ‘adoption’ or ‘diffusion’ paradigm and to complement aggregate statistical perspectives. As exploratory research, this project cannot definitively identify all the new paths to the internet, nor the relative frequency with which individuals choose these paths. However, early findings will illustrate current and emerging practices in mobile-only internet use, as well as opportunities and constraints for policymakers interested in promoting or leveraging internet use among a much broader community of the world’s inhabitants Introduction "Dear customer, to open or log into your Facebook account where you can share information go to wap.safaricom.com and click 'Facebook'". SMS advertisement in Kenya There is a great deal of enthusiasm around the notion that hundreds of millions of people will access the internet for the first time via data-enabled mobile handsets. Estimates from India (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, 2007), and South Africa (Joubert, 2008) suggest there are significantly more mobile internet connections than traditional PC internet connections operational in each country. Concurrently, high-end smart phones promise browsing experiences that are closing the gaps in speed and ease of use that have hampered earlier incarnations of the mobile internet, such as WAP. However, the enthusiasm, the aggregate statistics, and the glossy marketing images fail to capture the reality of mobile internet use in the developing world. The crux of this paper’s argument is that the research community knows comparatively little about this supposed community of users who access and use the internet primarily via mobile phones. We know little about who they are, how they discover and access the mobile internet, and how the mobile internet fits into their lives. This paper draws on ongoing qualitative/exploratory research in low income communities in urban South Africa. We ground our work in a domestication approach (Haddon, 2003; Hahn & Kibora, 2008; Silverstone & Hirsch, 1992) to move beyond an “adoption” or “diffusion” paradigm and to complement aggregate statistical perspectives. Our analysis delineates and describes emerging and distinctive “paths” to internet use. We explore the importance of selfexpression and communication and the role of trusted influencers in shaping and encouraging mobile internet use. Although our overall focus is on users of the mobile internet, the PC-based internet experience looms large, as both a baseline from which to draw contrasts, and as an important determinant of the behaviors and approaches of this community of users. By design, everyone we spoke to was a mobile internet user and not a PC owner. Nevertheless, more than half of our respondents reported some kind of PC exposure. Thus in the final section we distinguish between mobile-only and mobile-primary internet users. As we will show, the PC and the mobile handset are neither exclusively substitutes nor complements; indeed, they might not lead to the same “internet”. A look towards use, rather than adoption Like many innovations before it, the mobile internet is enjoying a moment in the sun when technologists, policymakers, marketers, and development practitioners are excited about the numbers of people adopting it. There is nothing inherently problematic about this enthusiasm, and it is important to know who is adopting, who is not, and what distinguishes the two (e.g., (Gilham & Belle, 2005). Yet adoption is not the end of the story. The actual use of mobile internet in daily life demands our attention. Without an understanding of how the mobile internet is used in resource-constrained environments in the developing world, it will remain difficult to identify its socioeconomic impacts or how to best promote its utility. Domestication and its variants (Haddon, 2006; Silverstone & Hirsch, 1992) provide particularly potent theoretical frames to explore use. Predating mobiles by a decade or more, domestication has been used recently to explore how mobiles are “tamed” and “appropriated” – made normal, comfortable, useful, and part of everyday life in settings ranging from British suburbs (Haddon, 2003) to Indian cities (Kavoori & Chadha, 2006) to villages in Burkina Faso (Hahn & Kibora, 2008). Other projects exploring mobile use in the developing world do not use domestication as a core lens, but share a similar sprit, exploring the complexities of use in varied contexts. Horst & Miller (2006), offer one such in-depth treatment of mobile use among low-income Jamaicans. It is only in the past few years that data-enabled mobile phones and prepaid data plans have made the mobile internet broadly accessible. Thus, research on the users of mobile internet among resource-constrained communities in the developing world remains understandably rare. That said, researchers in South Africa have begun to explore mobile internet use (W. Chigona, Beukes, Vally, & Tanner, 2009; W. Chigona, Kamkwenda, & Saffia Manjoo, 2008; Kreutzer, 2009), as well as the specific use of a popular mobile instant messaging application called MXit (Bosch, 2008; Butgereit, 2007; A. Chigona & Chigona, 2009; W. Chigona, Chigona, Ngqokelela, & Mpofu, 2009) Kreutzer, (2009), finds evidences of considerable mobile internet use among low-income schoolchildren in Cape Town. In a large (but not nationally representative) survey of 11 grade students in low-income schools in Cape Town, 77% of respondents reported owning a handset; and a remarkable 68% reported using a mobile phone on the previous day to access the internet. Chigona and his colleagues (W. Chigona, Beukes et al., 2009) also find early indications of mobile internet use among low-income urban south Africans, but little evidence of impact on economic well being or social inclusion, beyond the cultivation of social networks for discussion. More research will surely follow, but the time is right to continue to study mobile internet use in natural settings, rather than as “pilots” or NGO-led interventions, and to augment important quantitative overviews with thicker descriptions of mobile use in daily life. Domestication studies of the mobile internet, currently restricted to developed-world settings (e.g., (Edirisingha, 2008; Pedersen & Ling, 2003)), can provide insight into these new forms of internet access and use. As an added advantage, domestication studies of mobile internet use may help bridge the gap between the research frames of the “information and communication technologies for development” (ICT4D) community (and its subgroup, mobiles for development (M4D) (Donner, Verclas, & Toyama, 2008) and the “technology and society” community. While a focus on actual use may reveal beneficial, instrumental uses of the mobile internet—just as studies of voice telephony have indentified important productivity gains (Jensen, 2007)—the domestication lens does not presume such developmental impacts, nor does it exclude a whole range of other more supposedly frivolous uses, from self-expression and family connections to flirting, chatting, and entertainment. If these are part of the draw—and early indicators suggest they are—the ICT4D community should see this part of the picture. Methods This study draws on first-stage data from an ongoing project in Cape Town, in which the authors are working with a range of relatively low-income mobile internet users. An initial batch of 17 interviews were brief and explicitly exploratory, during which we uncovered themes for deeper inquiry. The second set of 22 interviews had more structure, were recorded and transcribed, and followed a standardized interview protocol. Respondents were recruited though a mix of sources. In some cases, individuals were approached via intercepts, in malls, taxi/bus stations, etc. throughout the Cape Town area. Others were introduced to us by and at Learn to Earn, an NGO focused on livelihoods and training in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha, one of the largest townships in South Africa. To qualify, respondents had to own an internet-enabled mobile phone (or have family access to one), and report doing some sort of GRPS or data-based activity on the phone, meaning news, chat, browsing, email, social networking, or visiting the premium c