Olga Kharif, Business Week, July 22, 2009
African Americans’ use of mobile Web has more than doubled in the past several years, according to a Pew Research Center survey released on July 22. Not only are African Americans the most active users of the wireless Internet, but their use of the mobile Web is also growing the fastest.
While 32% of all Americans have accessed the Internet via a mobile device this year, African Americans’ mobile Web usage was far greater, reaching 48% of respondents, according to the study. That’s a huge, 141% jump from 2007, when only 12% of African Americans used the Internet on their mobiles on a given day. “Our data do show that African Americans are less likely to have laptop or desktop computers,” explains the study’s author, John Horrigan. “Given limited budgets, it seems that African Americans opt for cheaper devices, [such as cell phones] with a certain monthly fee, over items with large fixed outlays [such as PCs] that require a monthly outlay to an Internet Service Provider.”
While white Americans are still much more likely to go online using a computer, wireless connectivity clearly helps narrow the digital divide. On an average day, 61% of whites go online when mobile access is included, while 54% of African Americans do the same. {snip}
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Original article
(Posted on July 23, 2009)
Comments
Except that with most smartphones, the versions of most webpages you see are limited and mainly text, to save bandwidth. Some smartphone internet plans charge so much per kilobyte.
I think black preference for the internet on mobile devices has something to do with their affinity for cell phones. Seeing a black woman without a cell phone is pretty rare at the moment, and usually, they’re talking on it to someone, and most of those conversations, from what I hear, are unnecessary and superfluous.
You can not case a store or warn your confederates easily with a PC strapped to your back.
This is similar to the phone situation in Africa. Almost nobody has a land line; everyone has a cell. Because the satellite up above the sky does not require African contribution to its maintenance, unlike telephone poles and wires.
There’s also the matter of necessity. Back in the ’70s, we had much higher cable TV penetration in our small town in the mountains than NYC had a few hours away. We needed it, they didn’t. (In fact, we got NYC broadcast stations on it.) In deepest Appalachia, where my sister lives, I remember seeing satellite dishes bigger (and probably costlier) than the ramshackle houses they were attached to. This was a couple of decades ago, before satellite took off in cities and suburbs.
So if we country folk had cable and sat dishes before city slickers, it doesn’t surprise me that blacks might catch up and even pull ahead in cellular Web use.
This is similar to the phone situation in Africa. Almost nobody has a land line; everyone has a cell. Because the satellite up above the sky does not require African contribution to its maintenance, unlike telephone poles and wires.
Right you are “Reg”, and might I add that a satellite is alot harder to steal than a telephone pole and wires [that’s the African version of “maintenance”- - just steal em, poof, no mo’ maintenance]. I imagine that alot of people in Africa “lose” their phone service because of “youths” stealing the eqipment. I’m sure this is something else we can all look forward to in this country as we continue to import “diversity”, especially from “the dark continent”!!
They still don’t have anything intelligent to say, so what does it matter?
Hmmm…what to make of this story?
Could this have something to do with blacks’ high time preference? Instant gratification, in other words. It may seem like a cellphone is cheaper than a desktop computer, but when you add up all the fees, a desktop could well be far cheaper over its lifespan. Texting, for example, is charged at astronomical rates by the providers, considering it requires far, far less bandwidth than voice messages. It’s definitely a form of legalized gouging.
Furthermore, you could presumably make a living through your use of a computer, or at least supplement your income, which is not the case with a tiny-screen mobile device (except to do drug deals, of course). Perhaps this is another case of putting frivolous matters over earning a living?
Further, we are told that blacks are thrust into the most dire poverty by dastardly racism, and yet being a major consumer of expensive electronics, and electronics with monthly fees at that, would seem to belie this claim.
There’s also the matter of necessity. Back in the ’70s, we had much higher cable TV penetration in our small town in the mountains than NYC had a few hours away. We needed it, they didn’t. (In fact, we got NYC broadcast stations on it.) In deepest Appalachia, where my sister lives, I remember seeing satellite dishes bigger (and probably costlier) than the ramshackle houses they were attached to. This was a couple of decades ago, before satellite took off in cities and suburbs.
REg,
