This week, I read ‘Understanding women’s mobile phone use in rural Kenya: An affordance-based approach’ by Susan Wyche, Nightingale Simiyu, and Martha Othieno. The first thing that stuck out to me in this article was that most Kenyans with phones received them secondhand. Most of these phones will have broken screens, missing buttons, or deformities of some sort. This made me think about the American desire to stay up to date with the newest technology. Most of the time, this technology is the newest iPhone that releases yearly. Kids’ first phones nowadays are brand new iPhones. Secondhand phones aren’t really a thing in America because of our constant need to have the newest and best. Even those working minimum wage jobs will find a way to have the latest iPhone.
I also noticed that these secondhand phones that Kenyan women have generally are given to them by a husband or boyfriend. The way I see that is a male must grant his girlfriend or wife access to a phone by passing down his broken, old phone to her. These phones are often broken in some way, as mentioned above, but it doesn’t matter because Kenyan women only use the green and red call buttons on the phones. They prefer having simple phones compared to smartphones because they are familiar and easy to use.
This also made me think hard about the flow of technology and how if you don’t adapt as technology comes out, then it can be a huge jump once you decide to upgrade. For example, Blackberry cellphones were extremely popular in the 2000’s but as technology adapted and touchscreen technology was introduced, phones such as Blackberry were phased out. Many people started with touchscreen phones other than Apple then made that switch and have been keeping up with iPhones ever since. For Kenyans, they are used to the limited function brick phones that they have. An iPhone would have capabilities far beyond their skill level and familiarity.
I think it is wild to think about people around the world who live without any mobile technology – it is crazy to even think about people not having iPhones. I think mobile technology is so integrated in our society and people adapt so quickly with it now that it would be a significant hinderance to go back to brick phones or landlines. It is a crazy concept that some countries’ technology is only as advanced as that. America and many Western countries are practically ran by companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, etc. They control the economy, society, sometimes even politics.
I wonder what impacts those technology companies have in countries such as Kenya where technology is not readily utilized. We have become so accustomed to technology being integrated into our everyday lives that it seems impossible to picture a reality with no technology or even outdated technology. I do think that when technology was more minimalistic, priorities were different. I think back to when I was a kid and we had a box tv, desktop computer with no internet, and phones were still blocks. I valued outdoor activity and interactions much more than the iPad kids nowadays.
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