I agree with the comment made by Pdexter: poor people tend to have cellphones too. Moreover, they tend to value possession of a cellphone even more than the more well to do, since it's a symbol of status, self-worth, and modernity. I've been in Nigeria and Indonesia last year, and was surprised to find so many people in the poorer as well as rural areas with a handphone. One more consideration that may counter our (western) view of the handphone as very a personal technology: even though many people in poorer countries/areas do not individually possess a handphone, people in rural areas tend to share one cellphone with a whole family, or even a whole village. A message spreads fast in these communities.
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I agree with the comment made by Pdexter: poor people tend to have cellphones too. Moreover, they tend to value possession of a cellphone even more than the more well to do, since it's a symbol of status, self-worth, and modernity. I've been in Nigeria and Indonesia last year, and was surprised to find so many people in the poorer as well as rural areas with a handphone. One more consideration that may counter our (western) view of the handphone as very a personal technology: even though many people in poorer countries/areas do not individually possess a handphone, people in rural areas tend to share one cellphone with a whole family, or even a whole village. A message spreads fast in these communities.