Is Mobile Phone Use Invading Multiple Boundaries? A Study of Rural Illiterate Women in India

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Chhavi Garg
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Place Of Residence ◽  
Mobile Phone Use ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Gender Divide ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Women In India

Blurring various boundaries of age, place of residence (urban/rural) and sociocultural–economic factors, the mobile phone has become an integral part of everyday life of almost everyone in this world. Through the identification of differences in accessibility and use of technology including the mobile phone, a digital divide is seen to be emerging, and what is of great concern is the emergence of a digital gender divide. The article is based on a study of mobile phone use by rural illiterate women in India, exploring whether three different parameters, namely, place of residence (rural or urban), gender and illiteracy, are hindering the use of the mobile phone or not. Nearly 85 per cent of the rural illiterate women studied were found to be using a mobile phone without necessarily owning it. It was their quickest means of communication and receiving information. A further improvement such as a community radio through which interaction with the outside world can be facilitated should be encouraged.

Mobile Phone Culture: The Impacts of Mobile Phone Use

2015 ◽  
pp. 658-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung-Hyun Lee
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Mobile Phone Use ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

From being a simple communication technology to a key social tool, the mobile phone has become such an important aspect of people's everyday life. Mobile phones have altered the way people live, communicate, interact, and connect with others. Mobile phones are also transforming how people access and use information and media. Given the rapid pervasiveness of mobile phones in society across the world, it is important to explore how mobile phones have affected the way people communicate and interact with others, access the information, and use media, and their daily lifestyle. This article aims to explore the social and cultural implications that have come with the ubiquity, unprecedented connectivity, and advances of mobile phones. This article also focuses on the discussion about people's dependence on, attachment and addiction to mobile phones, social problems that mobile phones generate, and how people value mobile phone use.

scholarly journals Mobile phones as life and thought companions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZhiMin Xiao
Keyword(s):  
High School Students ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
School Students ◽  
Mobile Phone Use ◽  
Healthy Development ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Will Power

According to adults who ban adolescent interactions with mobile phones in Chinese high schools, students ‘addicted’ to mobile phones lack will power and schools without a restrictive policy on mobile phone use among students on campus are ‘poor’ in quality. Upon analysis of data from 45 semi-structured interviews with second-year high school students from urban, rural, and Tibetan regions of China, this study finds that the consequences of mobile phone use are not always pre-determined. Teens do not merely use their phones to connect; they also treat them as ‘life’ and ‘thought’ companions, which they invest with feelings and thoughts that animate life experiences and catalyse healthy development. The wholesale ban on mobile phone use in school is destined to fail and risks blinding parents and educators to potential benefits the technology has to offer, for it overlooks the value of mobile phones as objects of ‘passion’ and ‘reason’, ignores the opportunity to engage with teens who make visible online the problems they struggle with offline, and disregards the need for empathic imagination.

Theorizing Phone Use Contexts and Mediation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sirpa Tenhunen
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Mobile Phone Use ◽  
Social Barriers ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Village

Chapter 2 develops a theoretical framework to understand the appropriation of mobile telephony in Janta as myriad fluctuating contexts, networks, and spheres of life extending outside the village. This chapter presents the book’s theoretical contribution to debates on social change and new media use, drawing from the following paradigms and concepts: domestication, polymedia, remediation, and mediatization/mediation. The book and the domestication paradigm share an interest in exploring how technology is adapted to everyday life and how it contributes to changes in everyday life through negotiation and social interaction. Different from the domestication approach, mobile phone use is explored in various contexts and in relation to face-to-face communicative contexts. Unlike studies utilizing the polymedia concept and mediatization scholarship, the book explores an environment where media use remains tangential because of economic and social barriers. The analytical framework highlights the relationships between mobile phone–mediated conversations and other speech contexts and media.

Orientations in adolescent use of information and communication technology: A digital divide by sociodemographic background, educational career, and health

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leena K. Koivusilta ◽  
Tomi P. Lintonen ◽  
Arja H. Rimpelä
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Information And Communication Technology ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Computer Use ◽  
Digital Gaming ◽  
Mobile Phone Use ◽  
Nuclear Families ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Educational Career

Aims: The role of information and communication technology (ICT) in adolescents' lives was studied, with emphasis on whether there exists a digital divide based on sociodemographic background, educational career, and health. The assumption was that some groups of adolescents use ICT more so that their information utilization skills improve (computer use), while others use it primarily for entertainment (digital gaming, contacting friends by mobile phone). Methods: Data were collected by mailed survey from a nationally representative sample of 12- to 18-year-olds (n=7,292; response 70%) in 2001 and analysed using ANOVA. Results: Computer use was most frequent among adolescents whose fathers had higher education or socioeconomic status, who came from nuclear families, and who continued studies after compulsory education. Digital gaming was associated with poor school achievement and attending vocational rather than upper secondary school. Mobile phone use was frequent among adolescents whose fathers had lower education or socioeconomic status, who came from non-nuclear families, and whose educational prospects were poor. Intensive use of each ICT form, especially of mobile phones, was associated with health problems. High social position, nuclear family, and a successful educational career signified good health in general, independently of the diverse usage of ICT. Conclusions: There exists a digital divide among adolescents: orientation to computer use is more common in educated well-off families while digital gaming and mobile phone use accumulate at the opposite end of the spectrum. Poorest health was reported by mobile phone users. High social background and success at school signify better health, independently of the ways of using ICT.

Caste, Class, and IT in India

2013 ◽  
pp. 976-994
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Langran
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Caste System ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Global Leader ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Decisions

While India has transformed itself into a global leader in IT, its major cities have become enclaves for growth that only benefits a middle- and upper-class minority. Despite the increases in employment, this prosperity has not “trickled down” to the millions of impoverished in a highly fragmented, stratified society. The caste system and the history of India’s middle class have engendered political decisions that have not benefited the poor’s use of technology. It is important to examine Indian culture in order to more fully understand reasons behind the duality of a modern, consumerist IT India and a terribly impoverished India. While there are some initiatives underway to address the digital divide, it is challenging to create replicable models in a complex and diverse country that changes rapidly from one location to another. Providing access to technology is not eliminating the existing social, cultural, political and economic factors that have created the inequities.

Caste, Class, and IT in India

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Langran
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Caste System ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Global Leader ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Decisions

While India has transformed itself into a global leader in IT, its major cities have become enclaves for growth that only benefits a middle- and upper-class minority. Despite the increases in employment, this prosperity has not “trickled down” to the millions of impoverished in a highly fragmented, stratified society. The caste system and the history of India’s middle class have engendered political decisions that have not benefited the poor’s use of technology. It is important to examine Indian culture in order to more fully understand reasons behind the duality of a modern, consumerist IT India and a terribly impoverished India. While there are some initiatives underway to address the digital divide, it is challenging to create replicable models in a complex and diverse country that changes rapidly from one location to another. Providing access to technology is not eliminating the existing social, cultural, political and economic factors that have created the inequities.

scholarly journals Keeping up, and keeping on: Risk, acceleration and the law-abiding driving offender

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Wells ◽  
Leanne Savigar
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
General Public ◽  
Adverse Outcome ◽  
Mobile Phone Use ◽  
The Law ◽  
Sociological Concept

Roads policing is the most likely generator of an adverse-outcome encounter between the general public and the police and is therefore one of the most likely situations in which individuals are confronted with their own ‘law-abidingness’, or lack of it. Despite this, it has so far failed to excite much criminological interest. The article will propose that the concepts of ‘risk’ (as a political as well as sociological concept) and ‘acceleration’ (of technological change, as well as everyday life) can be used to explain the controversial and apparently unsettling image of roads policing in recent years. This article reflects on how speeding offences (researched between 2002–2006) and mobile phone use by drivers (researched between 2013–2016) reveal much about how drivers see themselves, their priorities and the law.

Problematic Mobile Phone Use Questionnaire

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joël Billieux ◽  
Martial Van Der Linden ◽  
Lucien Rochat
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Mobile Phone Use ◽  
Problematic Mobile Phone Use
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