Overview

A look at the adoption of smartphones by older people across the globe. The smartphone is often literally right in front of our nose—but do we really know what it is, or what its consequences are for people’s lives around the world? This volume presents the findings of eleven anthropologists in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America on the adoption of smartphones by older people. Their research reveals that smartphones are a technology for everyone, not just for the young. The Global Smartphone presents a series of original perspectives deriving from a comparative research project on the ways that people use smartphones. The smartphone is unprecedented in the degree to which the user can transform it. It follows that 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 aging in Al Quds, Brazil, and Italy.

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9781787359635

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"""The most in depth study ever to look at how adults use smartphones reveals how we are ‘homeless’ when we lose them because they are where we increasingly express our personalities, interests and values. . . . A team of 11 anthropologists spent 16 months documenting smartphone use in nine countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, with a particular focus on older adults. Their analysis is published in The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology.""   * UCL News * ""Smartphone users have become “human snails carrying our homes in our pockets”, with a tendency to ignore friends and family in favour of their device, according to a landmark study, The Global Smartphone."" * MSN News * ""The landmark study found that rather than being something to play with to pass the time, people treat their smartphones like their home, a place where they live."" * Daily Mail *"

The most in depth study ever to look at how adults use smartphones reveals how we are 'homeless' when we lose them because they are where we increasingly express our personalities, interests and values. . . . A team of 11 anthropologists spent 16 months documenting smartphone use in nine countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, with a particular focus on older adults. Their analysis is published in The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology. * UCL News * Smartphone users have become human snails carrying our homes in our pockets , with a tendency to ignore friends and family in favour of their device, according to a landmark study, The Global Smartphone. * MSN News * The landmark study found that rather than being something to play with to pass the time, people treat their smartphones like their home, a place where they live. * Daily Mail *

Author Information

Daniel Miller is Professor of Anthropology at University College London. He previously led the Why We Post project on the use and consequence of social media and the ASSA project on smartphone use amongst older people. These resulted in 20 volumes published by UCL Press. Laila Abed Rabho is a researcher at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace. Patrick Awondo is a lecturer at the University of Yaoundé 1. Maya de Vries is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Marília Duque is a researcher at ESPM (Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing) in São Paulo, Brazil. Pauline Garvey is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland. Her research interests include material culture, consumption, design, and Nordic domesticity before her more recent interest in digital anthropology and ageing. Recent publications include a special issue of the Journal of Design History titled 'Design Dispersed', edited with Adam Drazin (2016), and a monograph entitled Unpacking IKEA: Swedish Design for the Purchasing Masses (2018). Research for this work was funded by the Irish Research Council and The Swedish Institute. Laura Haapio-Kirk is Junior Research Fellow in Social Anthropology at Christ Church, University of Oxford. Charlotte Hawkins is Postdoctoral Researcher in Social Anthropology. Her work focuses on social economies of mental health and wellbeing. Alfonso Otaegui is Assistant Professor at the Anthropology Department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He completed his PhD in Social Anthropology and Ethnology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Shireen Walton is Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Xinyuan Wang is Research Fellow at the Centre for Digital Anthropology at University College London. She is author of Social Media in Industrial China and Ageing with Smartphones in Urban China, both published by UCL Press.

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