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The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology

Miller, D; Abed Rabho, L; Awondo, P; de Vries, M; Duque, M; Garvey, P; Haapio-Kirk, L; + view all (2021) The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology. Ageing with Smartphones. UCL Press: London, UK. Green open access

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Abstract

The smartphone is often literally right in front of our nose, so you would think we would know what it is. But do we? To find out, 11 anthropologists each spent 16 months living in communities in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, focusing on the take up of smartphones by older people. Their research reveals that smartphones are technology for everyone, not just for the young. The Global Smartphone presents a series of original perspectives deriving from this global and comparative research project. Smartphones have become as much a place within which we live as a device we use to provide ‘perpetual opportunism’, as they are always with us. The authors show how the smartphone is more than an ‘app device’ and explore differences between what people say about smartphones and how they use them. The smartphone is unprecedented in the degree to which we can transform it. As a result, it quickly assimilates personal values. In order to comprehend it, we must take into consideration a range of national and cultural nuances, such as visual communication in China and Japan, mobile money in Cameroon and Uganda, and access to health information in Chile and Ireland – all alongside diverse trajectories of ageing in Al Quds, Brazil and Italy. Only then can we know what a smartphone is and understand its consequences for people’s lives around the world.

Type: Book
Title: The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology
ISBN-13: 9781787359611
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.14324/111.9781787359611
Publisher version: https:// doi.org/ 10.14324/ 111.9781787359611
Language: English
Additional information: Text © Authors, 2021 Images © Authors, 2021 This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non- commercial Non- derivative 4.0 International licence (CC BY- NC- ND 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non- commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Attribution should include the following information: Miller, D. et al. 2021. The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology. London: UCL Press. https:// doi.org/ 10.14324/ 111.9781787359611 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at http:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ Any third- party material in this book is published under the book’s Creative Commons licence unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to reuse any third- party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Keywords: ethnography, smartphones, ageing, new technology
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10126930
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