Sophistication with Limitation: Understanding Smartphone Usage by Emergent Users in India

Abstract

India has been witnessing a steady increase in smartphone penetration since 2016 after Reliance Jio introduced inexpensive internet plans. Much of HCI research in the Global South has been conducted before smartphones became more widespread. More recent work on smartphone use in India has been either domain-focused or studied specific features. In this work, we investigate how emergent users from low-income communities in India currently use their smartphones, and what they use them for. We draw on semi-structured interviews with emergent smartphone users across rural and urban India demonstrating their experiences and challenges related to low- textual and digital literacy, infrastructure, privacy, and motivations of use. Our findings revealed that while there is a lack of understanding of basic features such as accounts and passwords, there is sophisticated use spanning user-generated media, remote education, skilling, etc. We close with recommendations for future research and design for emergent smartphone users.