Mobile Use of the Internet Among the Poor in the Global South: Preferences, Theories, and Policies

Arora (The next billion users: digital life beyond the West. Harvard University Press, 2016) has claimed that, contrary to what one may have expected, poor Internet users in the Global South spend more time on leisure and entertainment than users with higher incomes. She argues furthermore that this anomalous finding is not whimsical or irrational, but is rather an expression of something we all desire, rich or poor. The problem, as Arora sees it, is that the motivations of the poor have been misconceptualized, especially by development agencies, keen to show that the mobile Internet can yield powerful developmental gains to this group. This chapter is concerned with challenging her hypothesis. It first reviews the evidence in support of it and then criticizes the analytical foundations. Crucially, while Arora refers to fleeting bouts of pleasure from entertainment, she ignores the fact that in some poor countries, up to four hours a day are spent on social media. At this level, all sorts of questions arise about excessive use and its implications, for both mental and physical reasons, not to speak of the possible deprivations suffered by young children in the large family size that is typical of sub-Saharan Africa. Note here that psychologists believe that a maximum of thirty minutes a day would lead to significant improvements in well-being. I also contend that Arora does not consider alternative explanations outside her own discipline, anthropology. The main one being, in my view, the comparative lack of digital skills in Africa and the Global South. Drawing on case study and country-comparative evidence, it appears that first-time users of the Internet do not avail themselves of reliable evidence on how the Internet works and are thus driven to use shallow leisure type uses of the Internet, rather than those that are more development oriented (which are more demanding in terms of digital skills). Policy-wise, I am led to reject Arora’s implicit assumptions of consumer sovereignty and well-informed preferences, which would lead to inactivity on the part of those who make policy (see also Chap. 3 above). On the contrary, my view is that there is considerable scope for such persons to deal with problems of excessive Internet use on entertainment; to alleviate problems of information that are rife for users in the Global South; and to deal urgently with the scarcity of digital skills in that region. Some scattered attempts have been made along these lines in sub-Saharan Africa.