IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-01141314.html

Internet adoption and usage patterns in Africa: Evidence from Cameroon

Author

Listed:
  • Thierry Pénard

    (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Nicolas Poussing

    (CEPS/INSTEAD - Centre d'Etudes de Populations, de Pauvreté et de Politiques Socio-Economiques / International Networks for Studies in Technology, Environment, Alternatives, Development - Centre d'Etudes de Populations, de Pauvreté et de Politiques Socio-Economiques / International Networks for Studies in Technology, Environment, Alternatives, Development)

  • Blaise Mukoko

    (Université de Buea)

  • Georges Bertrand Tamokwe Piaptie

    (Université de Douala)

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to understand what factors stimulate or hinder the adoption and usage of the Internet in Africa. We adopt a micro-econometric approach and use household survey data from Cameroon. Our results show that young and educated individuals are more likely to use the Internet in Cameroon. The probability of using the Internet is also higher for male, as well as for English-speaking and computer savvy individuals. Moreover, Internet users are more likely to have family abroad. We also find that Internet usage patterns differ across gender, age and education. For instance, older generations are less likely to use the Internet as a leisure activity (video, game, music). College educated people are also more likely to go online to search information than to have entertainment usage. These results provide evidence of digital divide in the Internet access, but also in the usage patterns on the African continent in particular in African countries that are at the early stages of Internet diffusion.

Suggested Citation

  • Thierry Pénard & Nicolas Poussing & Blaise Mukoko & Georges Bertrand Tamokwe Piaptie, 2015. "Internet adoption and usage patterns in Africa: Evidence from Cameroon," Post-Print halshs-01141314, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01141314
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2015.03.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hasbi, Maude & Dubus, Antoine, 2020. "Determinants of mobile broadband use in developing economies: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(5).
    2. Myovella, Godwin & Karacuka, Mehmet & Haucap, Justus, 2021. "Determinants of digitalization and digital divide in Sub-Saharan African economies: A spatial Durbin analysis," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10).
    3. Granguillhome Ochoa, Rogelio & Lach, Samantha & Masaki, Takaaki & Rodríguez-Castelán, Carlos, 2022. "Mobile internet adoption in West Africa," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    4. Lopez-Sintas, Jordi & Lamberti, Giuseppe & Sukphan, Jakkapong, 2020. "The social structuring of the digital gap in a developing country. The impact of computer and internet access opportunities on internet use in Thailand," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Nguyen, Trung Thanh & Nguyen, Thanh-Tung & Grote, Ulrike, 2022. "Internet use, natural resource extraction and poverty reduction in rural Thailand," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    6. Zhu, Zhongkun & Ma, Wanglin & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso & Leng, Chenxin, 2020. "The effect of internet usage on perceptions of social fairness: Evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    7. Yang, Qian & Zhu, Yueji, 2025. "The emerging short-form video platforms improve household dietary diversity of rural residents: Evidence from China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    8. Behice CANATAN & Gökhan ÖZBİLGE & Egemen İPEK, 2023. "A Socioeconomic Analysis in Terms of Household Digital Technology Ownership," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 31(56).
    9. Cristi Spulbar & Lucian Claudiu Anghel & Ramona Birau & Simona Ioana Ermiș & Laurențiu-Mihai Treapăt & Adrian T. Mitroi, 2022. "Digitalization as a Factor in Reducing Poverty and Its Implications in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-26, August.
    10. M Vimalkumar & Jang Bahadur Singh & Sujeet Kumar Sharma, 0. "Exploring the Multi-Level Digital Divide in Mobile Phone Adoption: A Comparison of Developing Nations," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-20.
    11. Andrés Ramírez-Hassan, 2020. "Dynamic variable selection in dynamic logistic regression: an application to Internet subscription," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 909-932, August.
    12. Martínez-Domínguez, Marlen & Mora-Rivera, Jorge, 2020. "Internet adoption and usage patterns in rural Mexico," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    13. Wanglin Ma & Xiaobing Wang, 2020. "Internet Use, Sustainable Agricultural Practices and Rural Incomes: Evidence from China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(4), pages 1087-1112, October.
    14. Armel Nonvide, Gbêtondji Melaine, 2023. "Impact of information and communication technologies on agricultural households’ welfare in Benin," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(6).
    15. Kleemann, Linda & Semrau, Finn Ole, 2025. "Connecting the unconnected? Social ties and ICT adoption among smallholder farmers in developing countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    16. Hong, Yan-Zhen & Chang, Hung-Hao, 2020. "Does digitalization affect the objective and subjective wellbeing of forestry farm households? Empirical evidence in Fujian Province of China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    17. Rudra P. Pradhan & Mak B. Arvin & Neville R. Norman & Sara E. Bennett, 2016. "Financial depth, internet penetration rates and economic growth: country-panel evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 331-343, January.
    18. Martínez-Domínguez, Marlen & Fierros-González, Isael, 2022. "Determinants of internet use by school-age children: The challenges for Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1).
    19. Ramírez-Hassan, Andrés & Carvajal-Rendón, Daniela A., 2021. "Specification uncertainty in modeling internet adoption: A developing city case analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    20. M Vimalkumar & Jang Bahadur Singh & Sujeet Kumar Sharma, 2021. "Exploring the Multi-Level Digital Divide in Mobile Phone Adoption: A Comparison of Developing Nations," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1057-1076, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01141314. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.