ABSTRACT
Mobile phones, one of the most rapidly adopted technologies in history, have been a telecommunications success story on the African continent (Eagle 2010). While in 2000 only one in fifty Africans had access to a mobile phone, the figure is now close to 70 percent. South Africa—followed by Kenya and Nigeria—has the highest penetration rates in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is estimated that between 80 and 90 percent of the population are regular users of mobile phones (https://ml.sun.ac.za/2011/12/07/mobile-technology-in-africa-a-comparative-view-between-kenya-and-south-africa/" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://ml.sun.ac.za/2011/12/07/mobile-technology-in-africa-a-comparative-view-between-kenya-and-south-africa/). 1 The broad social diffusion of mobile phones is reflected aptly in the title of a poem by the Zimbabwean author Mihla Sitsha, Makhalemkhukhwini, which translates as “that which even rings in a shack” (Nkomo and Khumalo 2012). Mobile phones are not only used for voice calls but also for writing and reading digital texts. This includes SMS as well as various Internet-based applications; in particular, mobile messaging and social networking sites such as Facebook (Deumert 2014a). In South Africa, figures for mobile Internet access were around 40 percent for urban areas, and just below 30 percent for rural areas in 2012 (https://www.marionwalton.com/2012/03/06/how-many-internet-users-in-sa/" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.marionwalton.com/2012/03/06/how-many-internet-users-in-sa/; for comparative data from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda, see https://www.insightsafrica.com" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.insightsafrica.com). Thus, Africa—although lagging behind in terms of computer access—has the potential for global connectivity via growing numbers of Internet-enabled mobile phones (Kreutzer 2009; Hyde-Clarke and Van Tonder 2011; see also papers in Ekine 2010). The phone, rather than the computer, is thus central to African digital literacy practices.
