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 DOI: 10.1177/0163443713517482 2014 36: 398 originally published online 20 March 2014Media Culture Society

Wallace Chumanatives': a case study

The social meanings of mobile phones among South Africa's 'digital  

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Media, Culture & Society2014, Vol. 36(3) 398 –408

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The social meanings of mobile phones among South Africa’s ‘digital natives’: a case study

Wallace ChumaUniversity of Cape Town, South Africa

AbstractThe past decade has seen the mobile phone evolve and acquire additional meanings in Africa and elsewhere. From being the relatively expensive yuppie toy of the 1990s to becoming the basic necessity available on the market both as new and used today; from the voice-and-text only functions of yesteryear to the compact multimedia ‘package’ that usurps the roles of earlier technologies like the TV, radio and PC, the mobile phone has been key to the (re)shaping of society, just as its appropriation has been dialectically shaped by society. And yet most of the writing about new media in Africa focuses on the economic and technological aspects of use and access, the digital divide, and the potential of new media to help the development process and expand e-commerce, among others. All these aspects are important, but there is also scope for new research to explore the social character of the mobile device among different African communities. This article focuses on the social place of the mobile phone among a section of South African youth, namely University of Cape Town students. It employs a combination of online survey and qualitative interviews with selected undergraduate students. The article notes that the mobile phone has arguably become a key pivot around which youth culture is organised, while at the same time being appropriated and shaped creatively by the youth to address their varying interests. The study notes that although the mobile phone has not replaced traditional norms of socialisation as such, its presence has structured, and continues to structure youth’s social and academic lives.

Keywordsappropriation, identity, meanings, mobile phones, network, socialising, youth

Corresponding author:Wallace Chuma, University of Cape Town, A204 Arts Block, Upper Campus, Rondebosch, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa. Email: wallace.chuma@uct.ac.za

517482 MCS0010.1177/0163443713517482Media, Culture & SocietyChumaresearch-article2014

Crosscurrents

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The introduction of every new medium, from the printed press to the internet, has histori-cally ignited substantial research interest on the profundity of its influence on society (Starr, 2004). Although the tendency has been to view the new technologies either with suspicion or as agents of social emancipation, there has generally been consensus that such media introduced new dynamics to social practice, for the better or worse.

Mobile phones have not escaped this scrutiny, not least because of their phenomenal growth in terms of access to handsets, as well as their embeddedness in both old and new communication technologies because of their internet capabilities. In sub-Saharan Africa, mobile phone use has grown so rapidly that between 2000 and 2008, access to them increased from 1 in 50 Africans to over 60 per cent (de Bruijn et al., 2009). In South Africa, access to mobile phones is now well over 80 per cent, and is growing.

In many parts of Africa, as Aker and Mbiti (2010: 208) note, mobile phones ‘have represented the first modern telecommunications infrastructure of any kind’ given that the fixed telephone service never went as far as the most remote parts of the continent. The rapid increase in mobile phone coverage has been possible thanks to massive invest-ment in the industry by both local and multinational players, sometimes against consider-able odds in the early days. In many parts of the continent, mobile phone companies still have to power their base stations with diesel generators due to erratic power supplies. Although the costs of access, both in terms of the mobile phone device and airtime, vary from country to country, the past decade has generally seen a lowering of costs across the board, resulting in greater uptake. The fact that there is a huge market for used mobile phones as well as cheap imitation models imported mainly from China makes it far easier to acquire a working phone in Africa. This is not to discount the fact that there still remain barriers to universal access. Aker and Mbiti (2010), for example, make the fol-lowing important observation:

The price of the cheapest mobile phone in Kenya, for example, costs half the average monthly income, whereas the price of the cheapest mobile phone in Niger is equivalent to 12.5 kilograms of millet, enough to feed a household for five days. (2010: 211)

There is little if any research so far that critically focuses on a comparative political economy of access to mobile phones in Africa, beyond statistics, which may be mislead-ing given that they are based on subscriptions rather than the actual individual possession of a handset and subscriber identity module (SIM) ownership. There are many instances, for example, of multiple ownership of mobile phones. During interviews with University of Cape Town (hereinafter UCT) students for this article, the majority of third-year undergraduate students confirmed owning at least two mobile phones. One student said: ‘I keep an average two phones at any given time, a smart phone which I leave home when I go clubbing, and a cheap one which I take with me when I go out, just in case I get mugged’ (Interview, 10 May 2011).

What is perhaps more interesting, beyond just the figures of access, are the generally optimistic accounts of the effects or potential effects of mobile telephony on African societies. From scholarly literature to government and non-governmental policy docu-ments, through to popular media, there is general consensus that the diffusion of mobile phones among Africans has the potential to, among other things, accelerate the pace of

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development on the continent. The New York Times, for example, made the bold asser-tion in a screaming headline: ‘Cellphones catapult rural Africa to 21st century’ (25 August 2005). The story, filed from rural Yanguye in South Africa, drew contrasts between the local people’s travails in accessing potable water for cooking food and the ease with which they could make a call on their mobile phones, which were relatively easier to access and maintain. Thanks to mobile phones, the rural communities in the story could access important information such as prevailing market prices for their farm produce, health information and, most importantly, keep in touch with family in the urban areas.

Another publication, the UK-based Guardian, wrote:

The mobile phone is turning into Africa’s silver bullet. Bone-rattling roads, inaccessible internet, unavailable banks, unaffordable teachers, unmet medical need – applications designed to bridge one or more of these gaps are beginning to transform the lives of Africans … often in a way that, rather than relying on international aid, promotes small-scale entrepreneurship. (14 January 2010)

The mobile phone, like other new information and communication technologies (ICTs) is still evolving in Africa and globally, and every so often new applications and possibili-ties are added to it. Researching its use is therefore an exercise in aiming at a moving target. Utopian accounts of the effects and possible effects of the mobile phone, built around evidence gathered (largely in anthropological research) clearly do have merit. There is no doubt that the mobile phone has opened up multiple possibilities for access-ing and generating information. Yet, as Moyo cautions, some of this research ‘has often been descriptive and celebratory to the extent that it inadvertently augmented the more instrumental research conducted by the wireless network companies seeking to know more about markets and the emerging patterns of mobile use’ (2010: 76). While not nec-essarily faulting this research, Moyo argues that certain critical questions such as policy and regulation, and the political economy of mobile phones, remain unaddressed in research.

This article seeks to address an element of the ‘less addressed’ aspects of mobile com-munications in Africa – which Moyo leaves out in his critique – namely the social mean-ings of the mobile phone in the lives of African youth.

Methodology

This article is based on a combination of online survey and focus group discussions with UCT students in May 2011. The online survey drew the participation of 100 first-year students taking the introductory ‘Media and Society’ course within the Centre for Film and Media Studies. The respondents who chose to complete the online survey repre-sented one-quarter of the total number of students registered in the course. A list of just over a dozen open and closed questions was posted on kwiksurvey.com, a free online research survey portal, and the link was posted on the UCT student educational network portal, called Vula (www.vula.uct.ac.za). All registered students have access to Vula. The portal provides students with most information about their courses, announcements,

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course resources such as readings and lecture notes. Once an announcement has been added on Vula, the message is sent to the student’s email. In this case, a brief description of the project was made during the lecture and this was followed by the uploading of the material on Vula. Students had a right to choose to participate in the project or not, and they also had the right to complete all or part of the questionnaire.

The essence of the online survey was to establish the meanings of the mobile phone in the context of everyday social and academic activities of UCT students, who are part of South African youth. As Schroder et al. note, ‘surveys of everyday life consciously set out to plot the meaning of the changing media environment for audiences and the way media practices adapt in the context of overall work/leisure lifestyles’ (2003: 206).

In addition to the online survey, the research applied limited focus group discussions with two seminar/tutorial groups of third-year students. This was convenience sampling as the researcher was also the convenor of the seminars and tutorials. Although the semi-nars covered different areas, they shared the component of new media, of which mobile communications is part. The discussions in each group lasted 45 minutes and were mod-erated by the convenor. The discussion in each case was built around the following gen-eral themes: the meaning of the mobile phone in the social and academic lives of the students, the uses to which they subjected their mobiles, the importance that they attached to the phones, their monthly spend on airtime, among others.

Table 1 shows the demographic profiles of the students who participated in the study.

Making sense of the meanings of mobile phones: a discussion

Among young UCT students, the mobile phone occupies a key space in the daily grind of social and academic life. It serves multiple functions in the youth’s pursuit of

Table 1. Background statistical information about respondents to online survey.

Median age at May 2011 19 (first years) and 21 (third years)Gender 79% female, 21% maleRace White: 41%

Mixed race: 23%Black: 20%Indian/Asian: 3%Other: 12%1

Average period of ownership of mobile phone 8 yearsAverage monthly spend R1502

Average value of phone (in Rand) R2000Average time spent on the phone 3 hours per dayHousehold income per month R20,000 and above: 34%

R15,000–R20,000: 10%R10,000–R15,000: 25%R5000–R10,000: 15%R5000 and below: 16%

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pleasure and recognition, in emergencies and non-emergencies, in academic research and information-gathering, and, depending on the device owned, in asserting one’s sense of ‘coolness’, that is, social acceptability and desirability. The convenience the mobile phone provides has become so naturalised that the majority of the respondents find it difficult to imagine the world before the device was introduced.

The mobile phone allows the youth to stay abreast of the ‘network’ (friends, family and broader social community located disparately in time and space) and therefore affirm their social identities. At the same time, the device provides crucial company through recorded music and videos during both odd and normal moments. This renders the mobile phone a sort of all-weather companion to the youth. On what the mobile phone meant in her everyday life, one respondent said: ‘It means everything to me as I cannot afford to live without it for a second. When the battery is dead [sic], I just can’t concen-trate. It is like my child is dead or something’ (10 May 2011). Another added: ‘It’s [the phone] basically my own little world … it is a source of entertainment when I’m bored and a security blanket when alone in a public place’ (10 May 2011).

To the extent that the mobile phone has become an extension of the ‘self’, it also allows the youth to declare their ‘availability’ or ‘unavailability’ to the ‘network’ in time and space. Unavailability on the mobile phone can communicate a range of meanings – being busy, being in trouble, or simply not being keen to communicate, among other meanings. Each of the different modes of unavailability manifests itself differently; a phone on voicemail differs very much from one that rings first and gets terminated before it’s answered, or one that gets answered and then terminated upon recognition of the caller’s identity. Availability, on the other hand, normally sends positive signals. But in many cases it is not permanent. Depending on what else is happening in the youth’s lived, unmediated world, availability can be terminated, modified or qualified. When this happens, some contacts get ‘blocked’, others get ignored, requests for friendship on social network sites are ignored or declined, and so forth. All these are extensions of the way the youth relate in the everyday, and the mobile phone becomes key to the smooth administration of these social chores, for better or for worse.

Asked to explain whether and in what ways the mobile phone has changed their lives, the general refrain emphasised the profundity of the changes. Below is a brief sample of the responses to the question: How did [possession of] the mobile phone change your life?

Respondent A: Drastically. I can now go out and SMS my parents to come and pick me up …

Respondent B: I actually don’t remember what it was like not to have a cellphone.

Respondent C: During the first days I called girls day and night and my mobile phone bills were ridiculous … now I know better, but still can’t live without the phone.

And for the question: If you were to spend a day without a mobile phone, how would your life be affected?, the following is a sample of responses:

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Respondent A: It would affect me drastically.Respondent B: It would be peaceful, though I just can’t imagine that happening.Respondent C: It would be like being naked.Respondent D: I’m sure I’d have serious withdrawal symptoms.

The sample responses above reflect the extent to which the youths have appropriated the mobile phone to suit their evolving lifestyles. While the respondents for this study may not necessarily represent the full spectrum of South African youth (as Table 1 shows, the respondents who chose to participate were mainly female (71%), white (41%), college-educated and middle class), their appropriation of mobile phones can be generalised, with variations being on the issue of access. The fact that the average time spent on the mobile was three hours a day (and double during weekends) speaks to the key place that the device has come to occupy in the lives of the youth. As Table 1 also shows, the youth have invested in the devices they use, with the average handset – the most popular being the Blackberry Curve – being valued at around R2000. The average monthly spend on airtime was R150, a fairly modest figure. However, it should be viewed against the fact that the majority of the respondents were subscribers to the BlackBerry Internet Service (which costs R59 per month) and were registered on the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) free chat service. This means that they could keep in touch with their social community in real time for 24 hours a day via internet-based applications on their mobiles without having to pay more than the subscription fees. Many respondents, especially during focus group discussions, confessed to catching a sort of ‘addiction’ to the BBM service, which they exploited nearly all the time – in bed, in lecture rooms, in buses and taxis, in restaurants while having dinner or lunch and, interestingly, even during face-to-face con-versations, especially if the subject turned awkward. The fact that the median age of the respondents was 19 for first years and 21 for third years, and the average person had owned a mobile phone for the past eight years means that most of the respondents had ‘grown up with’ the mobile phone, that is, the phone was pretty much part of their com-ing of age. This is a generation often referred to as the ‘digital natives’, as opposed to ‘digital immigrants’, who are the previous generations. Mobile phones, among other ICTs, are so much part of their social DNA that they are often taken as given. One respondent captured the embeddedness of the mobile in her social life thus: ‘Without it [the cellphone] my social life would barely exist – no SMSes to meet for impromptu cof-fee, no confirmations for lunch plans, etc. It’s the easiest and quickest way of getting hold of someone’ (12 May 2011).

The sense of ‘addiction’ to the mobile device is in part thanks to its ‘personal, portable and pedestrian’ character, as described by Ito et al. (2005). In their work on the uptake of ICTs by Australian adolescents, Holmes and Russell (1999: 69) argue that new mobile technologies have led to a ‘tectonic shift’ in the contemporary formation of adolescent identity. The youth’s use of ‘interactive and wearable’ technologies’, they argue, ‘is charac-terised by increasing levels of personalisation, mobility and global reach’ (1999: 69). It is possible to argue, therefore, that the ‘addictive’ and personalised nature of mobile phones among the youth is a phenomenon that applies generally across contexts and countries. However, it is important to point out that this ‘addictiveness’ should not be viewed neces-sarily in a pathological sense. Rather, the phenomenon should be seen in the context of the

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dynamic embeddedness of mobile phones in the everyday communicative practices of the youth. As Castells et al. point out, ‘there is a youth culture that finds in mobile communica-tion an adequate form of expression and reinforcement’ (2007: 127). The successful diffu-sion of the mobile phone with the day-to-day social activities of the youth therefore needs to be read in the context of its resonance with their pre-existing social and cultural values.

Jordaan et al. remind us that the contemporary youth, often referred to as ‘digital natives’: ‘were the first to truly grow up with computers, the Internet and cellphones…. [Because] they have grown up in an era of rapid technological development, they have a reliance on technology to complete various tasks on a daily basis’ (2011: 3). In their study of the meanings of mobile phones among American undergraduate students, Carter et al. (2011) reveal that young people have become increasingly dependent on, and developed deeper emotional ties with, mobile phones. Importantly, they point out that this has happened because of the embeddeness of the cellphone in the youth’s other social activities as well as communicative practices.

‘My phone, my calendar, my organiser’

While the predominant use of the mobile phone among the youth in this study fell within the hierarchies of pleasure seeking and ‘networking’, as well as keeping in touch with family in emergency and normal situations, the device was also considered an important academic tool by the respondents. Given the fairly extensive use of new media for teach-ing purposes at UCT, the students found in the mobile phone a convenient resource for organising their academic lives. The key functions identified include contacting fellow students on matters of mutual interest such as assignments, accessing emails, announce-ments and resources from the Vula interactive site, online research on academic assign-ments, among others. For respondents taking foreign language courses, the internet capabilities of the phone came in handy for translation purposes. ‘My phone is my cal-endar, my organiser, my reminder,’ said one respondent in the survey. The same respond-ent added:

Some lecturers or tutors cancel classes last minute, and they upload the announcements on Vula, and I can instantly access them on my mobile. It makes a huge difference in that I may not need to leave my student residence and waste time.

In her study of the uses of Facebook for academic purposes by UCT students, Tanja Bosch noted that:

In general, students who used Facebook for various kinds of academic purposes, from the formal to the more informal mandatory participation, listed a range of ways in which they benefited from doing so. Primarily, students said that their Facebook friends helped them to identify and find learning material on the Internet, as well as answering questions about logistics.… Students also used Facebook during university vacations to connect with others about holiday projects and share lecture and study notes. (2009: 19)

It is clear from above that in addition to the predominantly entertainment role of social networking sites, mobile phones also provide key platforms for academic engagement for

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the youth because they provide the convenience of both time and space which the university-based computer laboratory does not always do. It also emerged from the study that students considered academic uses of mobile phones more or less as extensions of their social and entertainment roles. This was because, for the majority of the students, the spheres of socialising were largely confined to fellow university students. This made it possible to deploy the mobile phone for both academic and entertainment purposes simultaneously.

‘You’re lonely, yet you’ve got company’

For the youth, the mobile phone also serves as a crucial social companion. ‘With a cell-phone,’ said one respondent, ‘you’re lonely, and yet you’ve got company.’ The simulta-neous state of being lonely and being in company stems from the mobile device’s ability to get the user to transcend the geographical and temporal constraints of the present, allowing him or her to connect with the wider ‘network’. The multiple social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which are available on most smart phones, render this lonely-not-so-lonely dynamic inevitable. It was interesting to note that the respondents, in focus group discussions, were also aware of the potential ramifications of the social construction of ‘abstract’ company which the mobile phone facilitated. One student said: ‘I once sat in a room with a dozen people for two hours and nobody spoke to the next person. Everybody was on their cellphone.’ In this instance the mobile phone comes across as an antisocial device in the lived realm of interpersonal relations. And yet, para-doxically, it also emerges as an enabler to the creation of virtual communities of interest, itself a social characteristic. In their study of adolescent use of communication and infor-mation technologies, Australian researchers Holmes and Russell made the following observation:

CIT (Communication and Information technologies) immersion leads to a recalibration of personal relationships. The attenuation of face-to-face or embodied relationships which results from adolescents’ CIT use simultaneously enhances the personal quality of the adolescent as an autonomous information consumer. (1999: 72)

Although observed within an Australian context more than a decade ago, this finding arguably also applies to South African youth today. In the current study, it emerges that where face-to-face interaction within confined space becomes untenable or uneasy for one reason or another, the mobile phone steps into the breach, transporting participants to alternative, virtual company. One respondent, a third-year student, gave an interesting anecdote: ‘The family dinner is no longer the same. Once we went to a restaurant as a family. However, for the most part through dinner, all of us were fiddling with our cell-phones. Including dad.’

The differentiated levels of meaning and influence

In his study of the influence of mobile phones on the daily professional practices of Zimbabwean journalists, Mabweazara notes that the technology’s inherent properties

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have ‘spawned unprecedented flexibility in the professional communicative spaces’ of journalists (2011: 14). However, he is also quick to point out that such appropriations of the mobile phones were ‘localised’ or ‘domesticated’ and were anchored in local circum-stances, which provide both opportunities and challenges for use.

This is an interesting observation which applies equally to the youth’s use of the mobile phone in this study. That the phone has come to occupy a central place in the way they organise their social lives is given. Yet it was also clear that the meanings and uses of the device were differentiated and therefore analysis should take into account the nuances. For example, on the question of whether they thought possession of specific mobile phone brands conferred certain social class identities (such as status symbols), the responses were unevenly split, with 64% answering in the affirmative and 36% in the negative. Of those who answered in the affirmative, the BlackBerry (and occasionally the iPhone) featured prominently as the device to have, and possessing it was an indica-tor of a savvy, upwardly mobile lifestyle. The majority of these respondents argued that, although they did not necessarily ‘look down’ upon the users of cheaper models, they certainly viewed users of premier brands in highly positive light. An interesting aspect of the responses to the social power of the mobile phone brand was the correlation between one’s views on the matter and household income. The majority of the respondents who answered in the negative fell within the high income group (R20,000 and above per month). One respondent from within this group said: ‘Cellphones don’t say anything about class anymore. Everyone now has a BlackBerry, from my wealthy friends to my domestic worker’s children. Contracts make phones much more accessible’ (10 May 2011). At the same time, most of the respondents who answered in the affirmative identi-fied their household income to be in the lower brackets (below and just above R5000). It could be argued that within the middle-class youth, premium phone brands play little or no role as high levels of access to them diminish their social capital. Conversely, it appears that among the lower classes, the youth still aspire to own expensive brands and therefore still associate them with favourable class mobility.

There were also interesting variations in the uses of mobile phones between first- and third-year undergraduate students. While the former spoke of the wonders of the mobile phone as a key ally in their newfound social freedom at university, the latter identified the more functional uses of the phone, for example, keeping essential contacts as they started job hunting. Among third years, it was also interesting to note that they kept an average of two handsets, one for ‘more important’ things like academic purposes, close family contacts and professional contacts, and another for mundane social activities. The handset reserved for important purposes was normally a smart phone, while the cheap or entry level phone was reserved for less important duties. The reality of high levels of crime in South Africa has also created a scenario where the youth reserve one handset for use in insecure public spaces like pubs and trains, and another for secure places, such as at varsity residence or on campus.

It can also be argued that the appropriation of mobile phones among the youth is gen-dered. In both focus group discussions and the online survey, female students across race and class variables emerged as most ‘addicted’ to the device and more adept at exploiting its multiple functions on a sustained basis. They used the device to access and participate in social network platforms, listen to music, access social and academic emails and

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general browsing. The average female student spent four and half hours on the mobile phone per day, while males spent two hours at the maximum. For the majority of male youths, the mobile phone was a largely functional device. They mostly used its basic functions of making and receiving calls, short message services and occasionally social networking sites. The gender differentiation in the youth’s uses of mobile phones is par-ticularly interesting here because it’s often neglected in studies of mobile phones and youth in Africa.

Conclusion

De Bruijn et al. (2009) characterise mobile phones as the ‘new talking drums of everyday Africa’, the successors to the traditional drum which was central to social communica-tion in traditional African communities. This article demonstrates the extent to which the mobile phone has become deeply embedded in the everyday social practices among the youth. The phone comes across as an essential and unavoidable link between the ‘net-work’ and the self (Castells, 2007). The multiple platforms and possibilities the device offers allow for the simultaneous affirmations of both individual and group identities. No longer the prestige symbol that it was in its earlier days, the mobile has become a ‘must have’ among the youth, a convenience tool both for pleasure and business. The sense of ‘nakedness’ and ‘withdrawal’ that comes with not having the mobile for some time reveals the extent of dependence on the device by the youth in the era of late capitalism. And yet, as this study reveals, the youth are not simply passive players here. They use the device to facilitate existing relationships and identities, and deploy it to suit their chang-ing circumstances in time and space. It is also important to note that the youth’s appro-priation of the device is not necessarily uniform and undifferentiated. There are variations that are informed by class and gender, among others. This research was based primarily on a small sample of predominantly middle-class South African youth attending an elite university. Given that the country is one of the most unequal societies on earth (see Marais, 2010), a larger sample incorporating the youth from impoverished communities with less education and limited access to mobile telephony could yield different results. However, this does not take away the invaluable findings in the current study, especially the extent to which the mobile device has moved to occupy a key social space in the everyday experiences of the youth.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

1. In the online questionnaire, some respondents did not divulge their race, preferring to be clas-sified as ‘South African’, ‘Other’, ‘Christian’ and so forth. I classified all these responses as ‘other’.

2. The Rand is the South African currency. At the time of writing, its average value to the US$ was 8.7.

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