ABSTRACT
There has been considerable euphoria surrounding smartphones and their ability to make mobile internet access a reality for previously disconnected communities, offering them exciting possibilities in terms of communication, education, health and consumer services. However, is this optimism warranted or is there a chasm between the potentiality inherent in smartphones and the actual ways in which they are deployed by individual adopters? In this research on underprivileged youths in Singapore, a country with affordable and widespread internet access, we find growing evidence of young people who are ostensibly connected to the internet, but whose online repertoire is severely limited. Eschewing laptops and computers in favor of smartphones, these young people’s internet use is largely confined to communication apps such as WhatsApp, Snapchat and Instagram, and entertainment apps such as YouTube, Dubsmash and Musical.ly, with minimal exploration of the World Wide Web’s rich offerings. While statistical measures would classify these youths as internet users, their app-centric navigation of the online space results in a narrow use of the internet that does not fully optimize the medium’s affordances for learning, participating, creating and “produsing.” To reverse this trend of “invisible illiteracies,” media literacy education in mobile-only or mobile-centric media environments needs to be urgently refined to better prepare young people for the full complement of online opportunities.
