Project Findings

Our principal objective was to build an evidence base which would allow us to identify key impacts of mobile phone usage on young people’s lives in the study countries [Ghana, Malawi and South Africa] and examine their wider implications for poverty trajectories.

We have built a very substantial [gender/age-disaggregated] data set for our 24 research sites in 2012-2014, precisely as we proposed. The 24 sites incorporate diverse locations [remote rural, rural with services, peri-urban and urban. 1 of each site type per agro-ecological zone, two zones per country, thus 8 sites per country. This includes a quantitative survey of phone use [N=4,500: 9-18y= 3000; 19-25y=1,500] and intensive qualitative research with young people aged c. 9-25y, their carers and other key informants [N=c. 50-80+ transcripts of in-depth interviews and focus groups for most sites, except the most remote locations where populations are small: ie. over 1,600 transcripts in total].

The mixed method approach, supported by our in-depth experience in these 24 sites since 2006, enables extensive triangulation. This has enabled us to compare patterns of youth phone usage in Africa in 2012-14 with preliminary baseline survey and qualitative data collected as part of our previous child mobility study with 9-18 year olds in 2006-8. This is particularly valuable since it covers a critical 6-year period of change in which rapid expansion in adoption and spatial penetration of mobile phones has occurred.

In the current (2012-15) project, in addition to young people aged 9 -18 years, we have also included an older age group, those aged 19-25 (our older cohort, 6 years on). This is particularly valuable in enabling us to better understand phone usage in building livelihood opportunities, accessing health information and developing wider social relationships as youth move into their twenties.

Key developments in young people’s phone ownership/usage: comparing 2007/8 and 2013/14 data

Our survey datasets for 9-18 year olds for the 24 sites in 2007/8 and 2013/14. This enables us to compare mobile phone usage and ownership patterns in all three countries for these dates.

Both ownership and usage have expanded very considerably, but usage continues to far exceed ownership in all sites because of a ubiquitous pattern of sharing and loaning handsets.

Ownership: Our survey data indicate that ownership of mobile phones (all types) increased massively in all three countries (from c. 0.6% to 8% in Malawi i.e. increased by 1,300%; from 2% to 16% i.e. increased by 575% in Ghana; and from 21% to 51% i.e. increased by 142% in South Africa).
Usage: Usage levels have also expanded substantially, but variation across countries remain. With reference to the week prior to survey, usage had expanded from 9% to 35% i.e. an increase of 273% in Malawi; from 17% to 42% i.e. an increase of 149% in Ghana; and from 56% to 77% i.e. an increase of 38% in South Africa. Thus, levels of ownership and use still vary substantially between the three countries, with South Africa in the lead, followed by Ghana, then Malawi (reflecting overall wealth differences between the three countries, as in 2007/8). In Malawi it is quite common for villagers to sell their phone at the start of the planting season/times of economic distress, then repurchase after harvest/when conditions improve.
Rural/urban variation: Both ownership and use, unsurprisingly, are more heavily concentrated in urban areas (with better network reception) in all countries, in both survey periods.
Gendered patterns of ownership evident among 9-18 year olds in Ghana and Malawi in 2007/8 still prevail, but in South Africa our survey data suggest there is parity now. Gendered patterns of ownership prevailingamong 9-18 year olds in 2013/14 largely mirror those of 2007/8 in Ghana and Malawi, in that there is still lower ownership among girls at country level in both countries. However, whereas girls’ ownership was significantly higher than that of boys in 2007/8 in South Africa (F24%, M 17%) both genders now report ownership at approximately 51%.
Massive smart phone/internet access expansion: Basic phones were ubiquitous in 2007/8 and still dominate in all three countries, but by 2013/14 around forty percent of 9-25 year olds in South Africa said they were accessing the internet through smart phones and around one-tenth in Ghana and Malawi. Unsurprisingly, usage gradations are evident by settlement type, with lowest access in remote rural locations and highest in urban areas in each country.

Key findings (2012-15) from triangulation of qualitative and survey research regarding youth impact follow, with reference to those sectors where our evidence indicate impact has been particularly substantial (education, health, intergenerational relations, mobility)

Impacts of youth mobile phone usage in the education sector

[for further detail see Journal of International Development 2015: 28,22-39]

Evidence of positive educational value among young people mostly revolves around its use for mundane purposes. For example, clarifying re homework tasks; checking examination results; requesting resources to facilitate education e.g. fees, books, uniform from family members; as a calculator; even as a light-source in locations without electricity.

There is little evidence of phones being used to for targeted searches to access educational information, except in South Africa (where smart phone access is higher). Information is most commonly sourced through Google in these cases.

Negative impacts on young people were recorded in all settlement types in all three countries. Detailed information has been collected on diverse issues: academic performance affected by disrupted classes (by pupil and teacher usage); disruptions in adolescent sleep patterns associated with cheap night calls; time lost through prolonged sessions on social network sites; harassment and bullying; and increasingly widespread access to pornography. In South Africa, where these issues are most evident, an information sheet based on our data has been produced and widely circulated across government, academia, third sector agencies and the private sector.

Class disruption from teachers’ phones was observed by pupils and teachers. In Malawi nearly 60% of enrolled pupils reported their teachers using a phone in lesson time in the week prior to survey, in Ghana well over 60%, in South Africa 90%.

A small proportion of pupils (especially in South Africa where access is highest), report being addicted to social network sites.

Impacts of youth mobile phone usage in the health sector

[for further detail see Social Science and Medicine 2015:142, 90e9; also paper under review for Health Policy & Planning]

Mobile phones are widely used by young people to facilitate access to healthcare. Over a third (35%) of survey respondents reported having used a mobile phone in the preceding twelve months because they were unwell. 31% had done so because of someone else (e.g. younger sibling, elderly relative) was unwell.
Young people used mobile phones principally to call people in their personal networks for assistance (material, financial, practical) and/or advice in the event of illness. Less often, phones were used to obtain assistance or advice from other sources. These sources included health professionals, the internet (particularly in South Africa where 3G phones were more widely available), radio/TV shows, or through reading (solicited and unsolicited) SMS ‘health tips’.
Young people’s ability to make effective use of the healthcare-facilitating possibilities of mobile phones was circumscribed by the extent and quality of their personal networks and their ability to navigate effectively the complex online world of health advice. Those whose networks included a health professional or a wealthy relative overseas, for example, were better placed than those with more socially/geographically/economically-limited networks. Overall, those living in urban areas and older study participants derived greater benefits in this way than younger/rural-dwelling ones.
In a context where young people’s access to effective healthcare is often extremely limited, mobile phones can offer an important way of connecting with therapeutic resources and information. However the benefits and potential costs/risks are unevenly distributed between and within countries.

Impacts of youth mobile phone usage on intergenerational relations

[for further detail see Geoforum 2015: 64, 37–46]

Many young people are already ‘experts’ in phone use and recognised as such by older family members, who are often passive, episodic users. The role they are often expected to take on as ‘infomediaries’ is giving them a new source of power within the family as they reposition themselves (or become repositioned) as family information hubs.
Gifting of handsets and airtime to young family members by urban-resident elders is common, especially in the case of stretched households with young rural-based members. It may accompany extended obligations to serve the family.
For young people c. 9-15years, phone interactions are dominantly with family and with age groups other than their own. For the older set of young people aged c. 16-25y, peer networks are more intensively accessed, especially for those young people resident in urban areas (where there is more opportunity to build extra-family contacts). However phone interactions with family are still very important, especially in Ghana and Malawi. In both age groups, girls and young women connect with family by phone more than their male counterparts.
The lesser emphasis on phone connections to family and people of a different age cohort in South Africa may reflect not only longer, more established use of phones in that country, but also the generational cleavage evident since apartheid days.
Young people use phones extensively to request money and material resources from older family members, but also for emotional support and practical advice.
Inter-generational tensions around youth phone usage include arguments over permissions to borrow the phone, airtime, battery usage and wider issues of youth surveillance by elders [especially regarding girls’ sexual relations].
An inter-generational power struggle appears to be being played out in many homes across the 24 sites. However parental control may be slipping [despite their greater control of material resources], especially where young people are playing a hub role in family networks because of their phone expertise, since this phone competency increasingly contains surveillance efforts and associated supervision.

Impacts of mobile phones on youth gender relations and female empowerment

[paper in progress]

Networks of romance are now increasingly managed/consolidated through the use of mobile phones. A strongly gendered phone etiquette prevails in all three countries. Gifting patterns and obligations are often highly gendered from a young age. Males are expected to buy airtime for their girlfriend, often also for their wife. Males are more commonly expected to call. ‘Beeping’ by the male partner (to request a return call) is often perceived as unacceptable, especially at the start of a relationship, but women can beep their boyfriends. Gifting of a mobile phone by a male to his girlfriend is often associated with the onset of sexual relations.
The phone has become strongly implicated in the juggling of multiple relationships. Numbers of other potential/actual sexual partners may be hidden, but when discovered by the current partner, e.g. through intercepted messages and similar revelations, are a common source of relationship breakup. Many young people prefer to initiate break-up on the phone than face-to-face.
Speculative calls to unknown females, including through random number calling, is common among men, including teenage boys. Similarly, relationships may start from acceptance of friend requests from strangers on social network sites. Many young men and girls accept all friend requests on social network sites, even those coming from total strangers. There is little recognition of potential dangers in such actions. Phone numbers are commonly exchanged at any first (face-to-face) meeting with the opposite sex, however fleeting.

Impacts of youth mobile phone usage on physical mobility and patterns of transport use + migration

[Paper in preparation. Information for policy makers and practitioners available at http://www.ifrtd.org/index.php/component/k2/item/23-rural-transport-news-december-2015. See also rural [age] comparative study with data from another project published in AAAG 2015

Mobile phones are now being used widely for key transport-related activities, with considerable impact on young people’s lives:

to organise everyday transport and travel and coordinate/synchronise individual mobility, thus enabling better space/time management.
to organise transport in emergencies (especially health emergencies, e.g. accidents, illness, obstetric emergency), with many positive outcomes reported.
to substitute for physical mobility. This is especially important in many of our sites where incomes are low, road conditions poor, transport costly, irregular or unavailable, traffic accident rates among the highest in the world and there are substantial threats of robbery, violence, and harassment on the road, while girls/women often face family-imposed travel constraints. Mobile money transfer facilities are of particular significance for avoiding robbery. This seems to have had a particular impact on the number of long-distance irregular journeys young people make. One quarter of those surveyed in Ghana and 40% in both Malawi and South Africa perceived that their phone use had reduced such journeys. However, some express concerns about reduced face-to-face meetings.
as virtual escorts and for way-finding, especially when on long, unfamiliar journeys, this reduces escort costs, assists location-finding in new places and improves safety of young passengers
by young people working in the transport sector, an important niche for poor young men, especially:

to build and service their business clientele;
to ease navigation of potential hurdles e.g. traffic jams, police road-blocks, though contravening valid police checks and using phones while driving will not aid road safety;
The potential to leapfrog physical mobility has uncertain implications for girls and women and for gender relations. Much depends on specific context. It offers new opportunities to safely access distant goods and services, including information services (for improved health, trade etc.), especially where physical mobility is constrained by cost or cultural restrictions, and can aid safer travel (e.g. being able to call for transport in locations with poor security at night). However it also introduces potential new hazards e.g. a few reports of facilitating establishment of ultimately negative interactions with distant strangers.

Impacts on migration: qualitative data shows some evidence of phone interactions as a precursor to male and female internal migrations [temporary or permanent] within each country, and some international [temporary or permanent] migrations, predominantly male [principally Malawi to South Africa and Mozambique]. Planned migrations to Libya were mentioned in Ghana forest zone transcripts of a few young men. Most planned migration was associated with family members already resident at the proposed destination. Survey data on international phone interactions indicates that these are highest in Malawi, where 57% (evenly distributed across site types) have international contact numbers stored on their phone, compared to 33% in Ghana (lowest in remote rural with a gradation to urban sites) and only 13% in South Africa (similar across all sites). This reflects the Malawian poverty context and the potential to find work in higher income countries close by (especially in South Africa). There was no significant difference in possession of international phone contacts by gender in any of the three countries.

Impacts of youth mobile phone usage on livelihood configurations

[Paper in preparation]

Our qualitative data suggests that for youth, who typically experience widespread constraints on their access to income and livelihoods, the mobile phone is facilitating job search and livelihood opportunities for both genders and in all sites, but especially in urban areas. However, the interactions through which this is occurring are often highly nuanced, as youth draw on their social networks utilising a complex mix of social and economic strands in their network connections.
Job search: In the survey, young people were asked if they had used a phone for job search at some point(s) in the year prior to survey. Among those no longer enrolled in education, almost half of South Africans (slightly more males than females) compared to only a quarter of Ghanaians and less that one-fifth of Malawians (far more males than females in both these countries) said they had done so. However, it is possible that relatively low reportage in Malawi and Ghana is partially a result of their definition of phone interactions with family and friends as ‘social’ as opposed to concerned with job search, even when the latter was part of the reason for interaction. When asked about how the main method used to obtain information on jobs by phone, 97% in Ghana and 95% in Malawi said this was through interaction with personal contacts, whereas in South Africa the figure was only 56%. A further 33% were focusing on internet searches. (Only a very small proportion of enrolled pupils were said they were using phones for job search. 2% in Ghana and Malawi, 6% in South Africa, an area where more support in schools may be useful.)
Phone use in livelihood activities: direct employment in phone-related enterprise: Interview transcripts for young people directly employed as airtime sellers etc. show that this work is generally combined with other petty trades or small enterprises (e.g. battery charging is commonly linked with barbers businesses. Many grocery stores have solar panels for charging, especially in Malawi). Unsurprisingly, then, in the survey only extremely small numbers report being engaged purely in phone-related businesses (and particularly few in South Africa where airtime is mostly sold by the major supermarkets). It is difficult to draw clear conclusions about phone-related work’s specific contributions to income in most cases.
Phone usage in other (non-phone-related) livelihood activities: This is reported in diverse contexts in qualitative interviews for connecting to customers, employers, etc. [e.g. volunteering positions taken to aid securing a paid job to paid work in the NGO sector; NGO employee activities; trading, especially for organising supplies, but also building relations with customers, chasing debts etc.; farming, for organising inputs and sales; in the service sector e.g. electricians; widely in the transport business, e.g. bicycle and taxi operators]. However, use of the phone to build livelihoods and configure new ones is less prominent than we anticipated [though see below re its very extensive usage to garner resources]. Less positive livelihood developments include the potential of phones to encourage or support illicit livelihood activities including robbery and a multiplicity of scams, where young people may be victims or perpetrators.
Phone usage to secure resources: for many young people – male and female- who are unemployed or in formal education, the phone has become an essential tool in securing financial and other material resources to support everyday living expenses, especially from older family members. Survey data gives some indication of the scale of such transfers. In the previous 12 months, 41% of Ghanaians, 45% of Malawians and 51% of South Africans [particularly those resident in urban areas] had contacted someone [mostly relatives] by phone to request them to give or lend money for their personal use. Requests for goods such as shoes, clothing and books were also made by 36% of Ghanaians, 39% of Malawians and 65% of South Africans surveyed. Many of these requests seem to be made regularly, almost as a routine part of everyday ‘getting by’.
Mobile money is increasingly used to organise transfer of funds – the availability of formal mobile money transfer services was changing rapidly in our field sites over the project period. When the survey was conducted [late 2013, early 2014], reportage of having received money through a formal service such as Airtel money over the previous 12 months was under 10% in all countries (9% South Africa, 8% Ghana, 6% Malawi).

Impacts of mobile phone usage on participation in social movements and political processes + religious activity

Much of our field research in Malawi and South Africa was conducted when political activities related to upcoming national elections were ongoing (both in May 2014). Some secondary school boys reported they would discuss politics face-to-face, but not on the phone (and in Malawi made reference to youth deaths in the July 2012 street demonstrations): this may explain why responses to our queries associated with political participation and social movements are comparatively thin, when judged against the level of detail available for other aspects of the research.
There is a small amount of evidence of urban secondary school boys [few girls] discussing political events and individual politicians on the phone: this may be partly a reflection of our age focus, with a majority of respondents under 18 years: many young people said that it is only those beyond secondary school are heavily involved in politics.
Female references to politics were especially sparse and mostly associated with school-set exercises [thus, googling for information on political leaders in South Africa].
Some local politicians connect to youth through SMS and social media in each country, but in all countries when politicians are in contact with youth [almost always young men] by phone, the focus seems to be principally on organising meetings, often with a sports component as the initial attraction (South Africa, Ghana): face-to-face seems to be considered critical. Once youth have joined the party they may be sent information by SMS or, as youth organisers, be asked to contact fellow youth, but mostly the messaging is seemingly still mundane logistics messaging re organising political rallies.
In South Africa facebook and Group chats on Mxit and WhatsAp are reportedly used to attract youth to political parties, but there was very little reference to this in individual interviews.
In the survey, under a dozen people in each country (in all cases more male than female), said they had called or texted (or attempted to call/text) a radio or TV political phone-in show in the year prior to survey (just 9 in Ghana, for instance, compared to 59 who said they had called a health programme, and 36 a religious programme).
Even local activity associated with NGO activism and advocacy is sparsely reported, apart from HIV/AIDS campaigns.
Phone usage associated with participation in religious activity is much more widespread, but again is mostly associated with organising meetings, choirs, excursions and suchlike (17% in Ghana, 17% in Malawi, 43% in South Africa said the phone had contributed at least to degree in improving the part they played in religious life). Some also download distinctive religious call tones, holding tones/messages, or prayer reminders to their phone, but there are varying views as to the significance of these in relationships with others of the same and different faiths.

Methodology: young researcher inputs

We have involved young people (female and male) as fully as possible in the research process, including young co-researchers involved earlier in our child mobility study (www.dur.ac.uk/child.mobility; Hampshire et al 2012, Porter et al. 2010; Robson et al. 2009). [For an age-comparative study, comparing with other projects, see Qualitative Research 2016]

We worked initially with around one-third of those (70) young peer-researchers – female and male- we had trained in 2006 (as schoolchildren), who were still available and keen to continue working with the team. (Some had moved on to full time jobs; a few now had children of their own to care for; many were undertaking further training, including a few studying overseas; some were un-contactable; very sadly, two had died.)

Their work in the preliminary stages, as in the child mobility study, helped in shaping the academic-led research. Their input was also invaluable because of their familiarity with the research approach and their knowledge of the research sites.
A few have subsequently worked alongside the university-based RAs, contributing full interview transcripts, running focus groups and/or helping to administer the survey questionnaires.
Three of the peer-researchers from Ghana and another from Malawi, joined the project review meeting at the University of Cape Town in November 2014 and made formal presentations of findings on behalf of their country groups at the concluding stakeholder workshop where they confidently handled questions from representatives of South Africa’s ministries of basic education and telecommunications and major NGOs.

Publication and dissemination:

To date we have published six open-access papers in international journals [3 papers based in their entirety on the project, another 3 drawing partly on the project [i.e. comparative papers incorporating research data from other projects]. A seventh paper [on health workers] is currently under revision for a journal and three papers based purely on project data [one on gender and empowerment, one on livelihoods, one on transport/phone connectivity] are in preparation. We also envisage a book based on the project.
Two collaborating institutions, the Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town, and the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development are helping to disseminate and promote our research findings to a wide audience across Africa and beyond. Kate Hampshire’s new Wellcome-funded project, in collaboration with project staff in Ghana, will aid further dissemination and development of the research in Tanzania and more widely across Ghana. Gina Porter’s advisory roles with the DFID-funded Africa Community Access Programme [2012-14], the Volvo Research and Education Foundation [2015] and the African Development Bank [2015-] are helping to promote donor interest, particularly in building on the newly emerging transport/ICT linkages in Africa evidenced in our work. Her collaborations with HelpAge International meanwhile are promoting research on mobile phone impacts with a contrasting age group.

Note: Objectives as they were listed in our original proposal:

1.To provide a substantial evidence base of how the rapid expansion of mobile phone usage among young people (female and male) in Africa is impacting on their lives, life chances and well-being, with reference to impacts on social networks, job search, employment, education, health, participation in social movements and the political process, inter-generational relations, substitution of virtual for physical mobility, migration.

2.To identify the broader implications of these impacts for poverty trajectories, paying attention to gender, household composition and location.

3.To sensitise policy makers and practitioners to the findings, so that they can support positive elements of youth mobile phone usage (and minimise potentially harmful impacts), thus better supporting both poverty alleviation initiatives and economic growth. This includes development and disseminaton of relevant guidelines.

4.To build a unique gender-disaggregated dataset on changing patterns of youth phone usage in Africa between 2006-8 and 2012-14 (a critical 6-year period of rapid expansion in adoption and spatial penetration) in diverse locations (remote rural, rural with services, peri-urban and urban). Comparison is possible across this period by drawing on our baseline

quantitative data (N=2,967) and preliminary qualitative data on mobile phone usage (frequency, ownership, purpose; by gender, age, household composition, location) and associated background material on 9-18 year olds collected in 24 sites across Ghana, Malawi and South Africa, as part of a larger child mobility study in 2006-8. In the same 24 sites, we will conduct a further survey of phone use (N=4500, including those aged 19-25, i.e. our older cohort, 6 years on) and intensive qualitative research on phone use and its implications for young people.

5.To involve young people (female and male) as fully as possible in the research process, including young co-researchers involved earlier in our child mobility study (www.dur.ac.uk/child.mobility; Porter, Hampshire, Abane et al. 2010; Robson et al. 2009).

6.To develop conceptual thinking and build theory on young people’s mobile phone use regarding its impacts on:

– physical mobility (including transport usage and migration),

– livelihood configurations

– participation in social movements and political processes,

– empowerment/exploitation

– well-being and health

This will be linked to key factors such as gender, level of education, socio-economic status, household composition, location etc.

7.To assess the potential of mobile telephony for breaking inter-generational cycles of poverty. In particular, to explore our key hypothesis that the mobile phone offers young people remarkable new opportunities to leapfrog physical mobility constraints and the power relations with which these are bound, with potentially life-changing impacts, some highly positive, others more negative, but all with implications for life chances, well-being and poverty cycles.

8.To examine youth uptake of blackberries/i-phones and broadband internet on mobile phones as these become available, and to explore current and potential impacts a) on levels and types of mobile use b) on non-phone internet use and their broader implications.

9. By publishing high-status academic work and securing donor support for wider dissemination, to extend interest in this approach to comparable regions.

Websites for Further Details

Ifrtd newsletter: http://www.ifrtd.org/index.php/component/k2/item/23-rural-transport-news-december-2015

Child Gauge 2016: http://www.ci.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1154&Itemid=834

RGS link to ASAUK conference session on phones and mobility in Africa: http://tgrg.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/mobile-phones-mobility-and-transport-in-sub-saharan-africa/