This week I read an article called Cell Phones in Africa: Communication Lifeline. I was surprised by many of the things that were brought up in the article. It really made me think about how connected we are to everything at all times of the day and it made me realize that while we've had that luxury for a long time, some countries are just getting access to the things we've become accustomed to. It will be interesting to see how far we can go with these technologies in the future and to see if other countries can keep up with us or if they will even try.

The first thing that surprised me was that African countries don't have landlines and they never have. After thinking about it, it made sense to me because there are things far more important than landline phones, and if they didn't have them while they were popular elsewhere in the world why would they get them now? Landline phones seem as if they are in the distant past. I know that many people in the United States have just gotten rid of their landlines and have moved completely onto cellphones. Personally, my family still has a landline phone, but we never answer it because the calls are usually solicitors. The only reason we kept it was because my grandpa couldn't figure out how to call us on any other number besides that one! In the Last few years, African countries have been joining the digital world. This means that they have completely skipped over landline phones and have gone straight to cell phones. It is impressive to me how quickly the digital world is transforming countries around the world.

The second thing that surprised me was the fact that cellphones are as common in South Africa and Nigeria as they are in the United States. I knew the digital world was growing and expanding quickly, but last I knew African countries didn't have access to cellphones or cell phone service, so I'm very glad that this is changing for them. The most common uses for cell phones in these countries include sending text messages, taking pictures, and mobile banking. Smartphones are less widely used in these countries. They aren't using their phones for social media, news sources, or finding jobs which are some common things that Americans do on their phones. I'm wondering if smartphones will become increasingly more popular in these countries in the near future and if they will start to use their phones for more tools than they do currently. Technology is always evolving so I'm sure things like this will change, but it will be interesting to see how they change and how fast they change.

The next point that was shocking to me was that across the 7 African countries that were surveyed, about 2/3 or more own cell phones. That is a big jump from having no access to phones at all at one point. It is also evidence for how fast the digital world is expanding to countries all over the world. These are things that probably wouldn't have been reachable without the expansion of the digital world, so it is nice to see that other countries are able to have access now as well.

Some of the other stats in this article also caught my eye. One being that in 2002 only 8% of people in Ghana owned a cell phone, but when interviewed again a little over 10 years later, 83% of people owned a cell phone. The number of people that own a cell phone is especially high in South America and Nigeria where about 9 out of 10 people own a mobile phone. 34% of South Africans and 27% of Nigerians that own a mobile device say that they own a smartphone, which is actually a decent amount of people for how far behind they were some 10 or 15 years ago.

Image: Modern looking cell phone clip art ( link to source)

Pew Research Center (2015). Cell Phones in Africa: Communication Lifeline.