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Mobile Leapfrogging and Digital Divide Policy Assessing the Limitations of Mobile Internet Access

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Mobile Leapfrogging and Digital Divide Policy Assessing the Limitations of Mobile Internet Access New America Foundation Mobile Leapfrogging and Digital Divide Policy Assessing the limitations of mobile Internet access By Philip M. Napoli and Jonathan A. Obar1 April 2013 This paper examines the emerging global phenomenon of mobile leapfrogging in Internet access. Leapfrogging refers to the process in which new Internet users are obtaining access by mobile devices and are skipping the traditional means of access: personal computers. This leapfrogging of PC-based Internet access has been hailed in many quarters as an important means of rapidly and inexpensively reducing the gap in Internet access between developed and developing nations, thereby reducing the need for policy interventions to address this persistent digital divide. This paper offers a critical perspective on the process of mobile leapfrogging. Drawing upon data on Internet access and device penetration from 34 countries, this paper first shows that while greater access to mobile technologies suggests the possibility of a leapfrog effect, the lack of 3G adoption suggests that mobile phones are not yet acting as functionally equivalent substitutes for personal computers. Next, this paper puts forth a set of concerns regarding the limitations and potential shortcomings of mobile-based Internet access relative to traditional PC-based Internet access. This paper illustrates a number of important relative shortcomings in terms of memory and speed, content availability, network architecture, and patterns of information seeking and content creation amongst users. This paper concludes that policymakers should be cautions about promoting mobile access as a solution to the digital divide, and undertake policy reforms that ensure that communities that rely on mobile as their only gateway to the Internet do not get left further behind. 1 Philip M. Napoli is a professor of communication and media management at Fordham University. Jonathan A. Obar is a visiting professor at Michigan State University and a research fellow at the University of Toronto. This research was conducted with the support of the New America Foundation’s Media Policy Initiative. The authors wish to thank Clara Villanueva for her research assistance. Introduction within more developed nations, populations that have previously lacked traditional PC-based As Internet penetration rates continue to rise Internet access are adopting Internet-enabled throughout the world, digital divides in Internet mobile devices, as the cost of these devices is lower access persist as central public policy challenges of than the cost of PCs.8 This process has raised the the digital age. In 2011, 70.2 percent of individuals possibility of what technology and development in “developed” countries were using the Internet, scholars call “technology leapfrogging,” in which a whereas as 24.4 percent of those in “developing” population adopts a new technological innovation countries were connected, suggesting that without ever having adopted the preceding 1 developing countries are lagging behind. At the technology.9 This potential for mobile leapfrogging same time, within countries, societal stratifications has led many observers to contend that mobile due in part to divides in access and digital literacy Internet access can act as a great leveler, closing also persist. For example, in the United States, gaps that exist between haves and have-nots, African Americans and Hispanics have tended to providing pragmatic solutions to digital divides have lower levels of Internet access than the rest of that have challenged policymakers for more than 2 the population. Such divides are generally a two decades.10 function of economic disparities that limit access However, largely absent from the policy discourse to the necessary hardware (traditionally, personal surrounding mobile leapfrogging and digital computers), infrastructure, services, and training.3 divides has been any in-depth discussion of how These divides have attracted policy attention, in mobile Internet access compares to traditional PC- recognition of the substantial social and economic based Internet access across a variety of relevant benefits (both at the individual and national levels) performance and usage dimensions that reflect the that are a function of Internet access and digital extent to which mobile Internet users reap the full 4 literacy. High speed Internet access and usage are scope of benefits afforded to traditional PC-based widely regarded as key mechanisms by which Internet users. This paper seeks to provide a nations can enhance their economic development thorough examination of this issue and its and individuals can improve their economic implications for digital divide policymaking and prospects, political efficacy, educational policy research. attainment, and social networks.5 Policy interventions to address digital divides have been implemented at the local, state, national, and Technology Leapfrogging and the international levels, and have encompassed initiatives such as government subsidies to develop Digital Divide and maintain infrastructure; programs that Technology leapfrogging refers to “the adoption of improve the quality of computer facilities in advanced or state-of-the-art technology in an schools, libraries and community centers; and application area where immediate prior technology digital literacy programs.6 Despite such efforts, has not been adopted.”11 Technology leapfrogging 7 digital divides persist. is widely seen as a way to rapidly increase the pace The rapid diffusion of mobile handheld devices of a country’s economic development and thereby presents another possible solution to the digital reduce the gap between developed and developing 12 divide, and a potential alternative to traditional nations. As Wijkman and Afifi state, “the benefits policy interventions. In many developing nations, [of leapfrogging] can be financial, social, as well as 13 and in many lower-income demographic groups environmental.” A key underlying requirement New America Foundation Open Technology Institute P a g e | 2 for any leapfrogging scenario is that the marginalized communities has found that mobile leapfrogging technology be superior in terms of Internet access has proven effective in performance relative to established alternatives.14 strengthening social ties within these This point is of particular relevance to the issue communities,21 and has enabled many community being addressed here, in terms of trying to develop members to improve their earning potential via the a more well rounded understanding of how mobile information and professional contacts accessible Internet access compares to PC-based access, and online.22 A compelling example of the the extent to which mobile can alleviate digital transformative potential of mobile Internet access divides. can be seen in Schejter and Tirosh’s recent analysis of technology adoption (including mobile There are a number of recognized challenges and devices) by a demolished Bedouin village in Israel difficulties associated with the process of named Al-’Arakeeb: technology leapfrogging. While leapfroggers “are not inhibited by entrenched intermediate As an unrecognized village, Al-’Arakeeb’s technology,”15 any new technology requires a disconnectedness from the national water, process of learning and the acquisition of relevant electricity, and telecommunications grid is skills.16 Thus, one concern is that users who have a major component of the state’s effort to leapfrogged to the new technology have not delegitimize the traditional Bedouin way developed skills via experience with the previous of life. […] mobile and wireless technology that could significantly affect their technologies have enabled the rewriting of ability to effectively use the new technology. The the rules to a certain extent. They have danger, then, is that “not only is the earlier allowed ‘Arakeebians to overcome the technology bypassed, but many of the skills concerted effort to marginalize them and associated with it are bypassed, as well.”17 From take part […] in civil society. Batteries and this standpoint, the prospects for effective generators brought electricity; broadcast technology leapfrogging are best when the new technology brought radio and television; technology requires a completely different skill set cellular technology, satellite television, and than the previous technology. mobile Internet made “unrecognized Al- ’Arakeeb a member of the international Information and communication technologies community.23 have been a focal point of technology leapfrogging initiatives and research over the past two decades.18 A convincing case can even be made that there are The ongoing rapid diffusion of mobile devices some ways in which mobile Internet access is represents one of the most visible and significant superior to traditional Internet access, particularly contexts in which technology leapfrogging is either in terms of the wider array of contexts in which already taking place or is a goal being pursued.19 access can be obtained, which facilitates different kinds of uses, as well as greater overall levels of Research has provided compelling evidence across usage.24 The ability to immediately access and a variety of contexts of how mobile Internet disseminate information and to utilize the ever- technologies can help reduce the gap in Internet growing array of functionalities provided by mobile access that has persisted in large part due to the applications, regardless of location or context, costs associated
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