Mobile use, social media and networks

In the sub-Saharan region, almost 80 percent of the owners of mobile phones use their devices mostly for sending text messages. In South Africa, 95 percent of mobile phone owners use their devices for sending messages and in Tanzania this figure is 92 percent, compared with at least half of all mobile phone owners in other African countries (Pew Research Center, 2015).

In 2017, globally there were 49.7 percent of users with mobile Internet access, and most of these users were located in Asia and Africa. The highest rate of mobile Internet traffic was registered in Kenya, followed by Nigeria, India, Singapore, Ghana and Indonesia.⁴⁷ Moreover, globally the average daily usage of Internet through a mobile phone is 3 hours and 14 minutes.

Thailand is the top ranked at more than 5 hours per day (Hootsuite and We are social, 2019).

Mobile phone users use their devices for different activities, mostly differentiated by age, gender and personal preferences. The most common activities are phone calls, sending text messages and e-mails, making videos and social networking.

According to Ouma et al. (2017), 56 percent of the adult population in Uganda have used mobile money services for cash withdrawals, followed by receiving (54 percent) and sending money (46 percent). In Malawi, 42 percent of the adult population use mobile purchase airtime, while around 30 percent use mobile phone services for cash withdrawals, followed by receiving money (23 percent), sending money (18 percent) and cash deposits (17 percent). The Pew Research Center (2015) showed in the young population in Africa, it is mostly

those with higher education and good English-language skills who engage in these mobile activities. For example, in Ghana, 65 percent of mobile owners are aged 18–34 and are using their mobile devices for sending text messages. In contrast, only 34 percent of mobile users aged 35 and over are engaging in above activities. In addition, 62 percent of young mobile phone owners in Ghana use their devices for taking pictures or videos, but only 33 percent of the older generations do this (Pew Research Center, 2015).

In EU-28, in 2016 over half (52 percent) the population aged 16–74 used the Internet for social networking.

Most of these people were located in capital city regions and across Nordic countries and western EU Member States. The only exception was France, in which most regions had relatively low shares participating in social networking (Eurostat, 2017b).

Pattern of mobile usage, apart from varying based on age and gender, also differ fiercely across urban and rural regions. In urban Indian regions for example, services such as social networking, e-mails and online shopping are prevalent, whereas in rural parts of the country the Internet is mostly used for entertainment in the form of video and audio content (Kantar-IMRB, 2017).

Figure 3-7 Percentage of individuals who use mobile phones or Internet by purpose of use in Africa, 2011–

2012

Source: Research ICT Africa survey, 2018.

Email Social networks Web browsing Sending/receiving money Int’l calls Photos/videos Transfer airtime Music Games Missed call Text messages Phone calls

Male Female

a) Mobile usage

Note: Data are averages from 12 African countries.

Interacting with government Internet banking Purchasing goods and services Distance learning or job training Calling over the Internet (VoIP) Getting info from government Look for free education content Getting info about goods and services Getting info about health services Getting info about schools Formal education Downloading/watching videos or radio Playing games Reading online newspapers/books Fact checking/definition of a word Posting info or instant messaging Sending or receiving email Social networking

daily weekly occasionally

b) Mobile internet usage

Figure 3-8 Purpose of mobile Internet access in India by degree of urbanization, 2017.

Source: Kantar-IMRB, 2017.

Urban Rural

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Online

communication Entertainment Social

networking Online finance

and transactions Other online services

As mobile devices are the major source of Internet access globally, this has implications for social media usage. The focus should be how to best exploit and combine mobile and social media in terms of changes and development of daily life of the population worldwide (GFRAS, 2016).

The number of people worldwide using social media is rapidly growing, and the numbers of users of the top platforms in each country have increased by almost 1 million new users every day during the past 12 months.

This means that every second there are 11 new users registered. In 2018, worldwide there were more than 3.4 billion people using social media each month, and 9 out of 10 users accessed their chosen platforms via mobile devices (Hootsuite and We are social, 2019; We are social and Hootsuite, 2018).

Eilu (2018) reported that social media is the main reason for use of mobile Internet in sub-Saharan Africa. However, despite the rapid global increase of the Internet and mobile

phones and device use, there is a lack of research on use of mobile Internet and social media in rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Eilu highlights the need for technology in rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to Hootsuite (Hootsuite and We are social, 2019), Central and Southeast Asia have recorded the fastest gains in social media penetration, with more than 90 percent and 33 percent, respectively. Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines have reached 99 percent of social media penetration. The fastest individual country growth rate was registered in Saudi Arabia at 32 percent, with 87 percent penetration rate. This is followed by India, with 31 percent annual growth in social media users.

On the other hand, in Nigeria usage of social media remains low, with 19 percent of the population being active users of social media. In Ghana, 29 percent are active users, while the registered highest penetration

United Arab Emirates United States of America Australia Bolivia (Plurinational State of) Libya Iran (Islamic Republic of) Lithuania Lao People’s Democratic Republic Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) Gabon United Republic of TanzaniaMali Yemen Democratic Republic of the Congo Malawi Niger Tajikistan Chad

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Figure 3-9 Global mobile social media penetration, 2017.

Source: GSMA, 2018.

level in Nepal is just 23 percent. One potential reason for low social media usage is the exceptional difference in access for women and men. In India for example, only 24 percent of Facebook users are women. In Bangladesh that figure is slightly lower, at just 23 percent, and in Pakistan, it is even lower, at barely 22 percent (We are social, 2016). The gender gap is even more clear among the younger population.

According to the ECLAC Database (2015), one reason for the digital divide in terms of social media use is level of education. In Latin America and the Caribbean, those who have completed secondary or tertiary education are more frequent users of social media then those

who have completed only primary education or have had no education. In most countries in Latin America, people with no formal education are not users of social networks and media. The only exceptions from this are seen in Ecuador and Costa Rica, with 45 percent and 44.9 percent social network users, respectively, who have no education.

The global social landscape is dominated by Facebook’s core platform, with the total number of users increasing by 15 percent on a yearly basis, reaching almost

2.27 billion at the beginning of 2019. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger both grew twice as fast as the core Facebook platform, with the number of people Figure 3-10 Social media users by gender and age, 2019.

Source: Hootsuite and We are social, 2019.

Male Female

20%

18%

16%

14%

12%

10%

8%

6%

4%

2%

0%

13-17 years old 18-24 years old 25-34 years old 35-44 years old 45-54 years old 55-64 years old 65+ years old

Figure 3-11 Share of population who use social networks by educational level in Latin America and Caribbean (percentage of total population), 2015.

Source: CEPLSTAT, 2019.

Without education Primary High school Tertiary Total

Argentina Bolivia (Plurinational State of) Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Dominican Republic Uruguay Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

using these Facebook messenger applications rising by 30 percent from year to year.

WhatsApp has a stronger geographic position compared with Facebook Messenger, being the top messenger application in 128 countries worldwide, but both applications have almost the same number of users.

Interestingly, there are only 25 countries around the world in which a Facebook-owned application is not the most used messenger platform.

Pew Research Center (2018) reported that YouTube and Facebook also dominate in the United States. Most of the younger population in the United States, especially those aged 18–24 are using different social media platforms and are notable for using them frequently. Most of these

young people (78 percent) use Snapchat and a sizeable majority of these users (71 percent) visit the platform more than once a day. In rural areas in the United States, there are fewer social media users than in urban areas.

Furthermore, there is a significant difference in usage of LinkedIn and Twitter platforms among users in urban and rural areas of the United States.

Research into the purpose of use of mobile apps is lacking. The latest data from App Annie (2019) show that people now spend seven longer using mobile apps compared with mobile Web browsers. In Indonesia, for example, mobile users spent over 4 hours a day on Apps.

In 2018, in developed markets such as the United States and Canada, the average user spent nearly 3 hours a day on mobile Apps.

Figure 3-12 Social platforms and VoIP active user account (in millions), 2019.

Source: Hootsuite and We are social, 2019.

2,500

2,000

1,500

1,000

500

0

Facebook Youtube Whatsapp FB Messenger WeChat Instagram QQ Qzone Tik Tok Sina Weibo Reddit Twitter Douban LinkedIn Baidu Skype Snapchat Viber Pinterest

Figure 3-13 Percentage of US population who use each social media platform by degree of urbanization, 2018.

Source: Pew Research Center, 2018.

Whatsapp Twitter LinkedIn Snapchat Instagram Pinterest YouTube Facebook

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Urban Rural

United States of America Bolivia (Plurinational State of) Colombia Guatemala Nicaragua Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) Costa Rica United Republic of Tanzania Kenya Iran (Islamic Republic of) Bangladesh Democratic Republic of the Congo Mauritania Lao People’s Democratic Republic Sub-Saharan Africa

Figure 3-14 Number of mobile apps accessible in local languages, 2017.

Source: GSMA, 2018.

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

In general, populations of rural communities show low usage of the Internet and social media, with the emphasis on networks and platforms such as Facebook, WeChat, Twitter, etc. This is especially visible among indigenous populations and local tribe language-predominant areas. Among other limitations, is information availability in local languages. As the level of education and literacy are lower in rural areas compared with urban area, appropriate social media content is desirable.

Figure 3-14 shows that developed countries and those countries in which the official language is one of the world’s most spoken languages (English, French, Spanish, etc.) have more available apps in the local language then countries in regions such as Asia and the Pacific region and sub-Saharan Africa, in which most nations speak either local tribe language or unique national language.

3.1.4 MOBILE APPS, SOCIAL MEDIA AND

Im Dokument DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES (Seite 68-75)