Mobile Phones as Amplifiers of Social Inequality among Rural Kenyan Women

Abstract

This article provides a detailed analysis of rural Kenyan women and their interactions with the products and services of Safaricom Ltd., Kenya's dominant mobile network provider. The amplification theory of technology offers a framework for analyzing our data, and we find that differential motivation and capacity are mechanisms that appear to benefit the network provider, while disadvantaging rural mobile phone owners. In particular, the design of Safaricom's airtime scratch cards and mobile services does not support rural users' capabilities. Our analysis suggests that technologists consider their ongoing responsibilities for technologies they built yesterday-that is, they should address problems inherent in the current design of mobile-phone interfaces. We offer practical recommendations on how to do this, and ask HCI/ICTD researchers and practitioners to more carefully consider how overlooking corporate power structures and their impact on mobile phone use amplifies social inequality.

In a New Land

“…Fisher et al [22] studied how Syrian youths use connected technology to help others in the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan, whilst Maitland and Xu [37] found that a large majority (86%) of refugees in the same camp owned a mobile phone. Talhouk et al [50,51] 57]. However, unlike the focus of this cannon of literature that explores the role of mobile technology either during the refugee journey or in the old home country, the focus of our paper differs from this body of work as it looks at mobile phone use in the new country, at a time of changing precarity and where the pressures of old and new homes collide.…”

Digital technologies and youth mobility in ruralZimbabwe

“…Existing evidence, even though debated, show how the adoption and use of DTs (eg, mobile financial services, m‐Health, and e‐Agriculture) positively contribute to the transformation of societies (Aker & Ksoll, ). On the contrary, other studies, eg, Wyche, Simiyu, and Othieno (), show that the adoption and use of DTs in societies have, to some extent, led to the undoing of development in rural communities, for example, by exacerbating social inequalities. These contrasting technology affordances are the proponents of the social determinism approach, which argues that DTs' impacts on societies are not predetermined; thus, technologies can have either desired or undesired impact depending on how societies appropriate the DTs (Luna‐Reyes & Gil‐Garcia, ).…”

M-PESA and Financial Inclusion in Kenya: Of Paying Comes Saving?

“…There is also a paper-by Wyche, Simiyu and Otheno [60]-that examines the mobile phone skills of Kenyans, but, as we will explain, this paper might be more about step 3 than about step 2. Specifically, Wyche et al rely on the amplification theory of technology-which holds that technology can amplify existing social inequalities-to study how rural Kenyan women interact with the products and services of Safaricom.…”