ABSTRACT
The avid adoption of smartphones and mobile communication in Asia have triggered a proliferation of multi-functional ‘super apps’ such as WeChat, Gojek and Grab that enable users to perform a gamut of everyday tasks, including booking transportation, ordering food, shopping online, banking, reading news and playing games. The convenience, versatility and efficiency of these super apps have made people even more reliant on their smartphones. To appreciate the full significance of mobile communication and its shape-shifting possibilities, especially within micro-settings such as homes and workplaces, we apply the technology domestication framework to analyse how mobile communication has been incorporated into quotidian routines in all facets of life. In so doing, we can critically examine how the growing reliance on mobile communication has unleashed both possibilities and risks. In particular, the emergence and intense usage of super apps call into question issues of publicness, dependency, privacy, work-life balance and digital divides. We conclude by proposing market, policy or public education interventions that will help to ensure that mobile communication grants people benefits with minimal costs.
