The New Love of India's Slum: Mobile Internet!


Entertainment usages make up a significant portion of everyday internet use, transforming the technology experience of users that have had no previous experience with the internet. At the time of the research, twelve out of twenty profiled teenagers were using the internet on their mobile phones and the remaining eight teens occasionally accessed the internet on a borrowed phone in their schools, at cyber café or at a friend‘s home. None had a technical understanding of the internet but knew a few of the things it could enable them to do. For most, the internet was a pathway to games, music and video, driving behaviors to search, browse and identify content on the web.

These young Internet users were non-elite, marginally employed and with a limited education that they struggled to obtain and leverage in the down-market environment of an urban slum. The ubiquity of mobile internet services and its reasonably priced, pay-per-use access, offered a new capacity to manage and monitor expense and use.

The study further threw light on the ways in which an internet resource is managed, used and integrated into the routines of everyday life among underprivileged teenagers and to understand how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools are used.