South African study on public access and mobile use

Public access, private mobile: The interplay of shared access and the mobile Internet for Teenagers in Cape Town is the report from a study led by Marion Walton (University of Cape Town) and Jonathan Donner (Microsoft Research India). "Discussion is structured around five claims [based on their research]:
- Public access and private mobiles offer different affordances, and teenage users have developed complex, fine-grained practices which help them to negotiate the respective strengths and weaknesses of the affordances."
- The public access venue provides non-substitutable impact to resource-constrained users, even those with 'the Internet in their pocket.'"
- Public access supports the development of digital literacies associated with hyperlinked media and large-format documents, while mobile access supports everyday social literacies and messaging."
- Teens can use a combination of mobile and public access Internet resources to participate in networked media production and grassroots economic mobilization."
- Public access venue operators can improve venue rules and skills to encourage the complementary use of the mobile Internet."
Walton, M., Donner, J. (2012). Public access, private mobile: The interplay of shared access and the mobile Internet for teenagers in Cape Town. Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town. Linked from http://www.globalimpactstudy.org/publications-summary/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Botanical gardens, Sheffield, November 2012