Public Access ICT across Cultures

Public Access ICT across Cultures

Diversifying Participation in the Network Society

Edited by Francisco J. Proenza

© 2015 International Development Research Centre and Contributors

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0) International License.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Amy Mahan

Contents

To Amy Mahan

Foreword by Bruce Girard

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

Francisco J. Proenza

I IMPACT ON PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT AND WELL-BEING

2 User Perceptions of Impact of Internet Cafés in Amman, Jordan

Ghaleb Rabab’ah, Ali Farhan AbuSeileek, Francisco J. Proenza, Omar Fraihat, and Saif Addeen Alrababah

3 Impact of Public Access to ICT Skills on Job Prospects in Rwanda

Jean Damascene Mazimpaka, Théodomir Mugiraneza, and Ramata Molo Thioune

4 Personal Objectives and the Impact of Internet Cafés in China

Francisco J. Proenza, Wei Shang, Guoxin Li, Jianbin Hao, Oluwasefunmi ‘Tale Arogundade, and Martin S. Hagger

5 Problematic Internet Use among Internet Café Users in China

Wei Shang, Xuemei Jiang, Jianbin Hao, and Xiaoguang Yang

6 The Contribution of Five Télécentres Communautaires Polyvalents to Cameroon’s Rural Secondary Education

Sylvie Siyam Siwe, Laurent Aristide Eyinga Eyinga, Avis Momeni, Olga Balbine Tsafack Nguekeng, Abiodun Jagun, Ramata Molo Thioune, and Francisco J. Proenza

II FACILITATING INCLUSION AND ENABLING THE BUILDUP OF SOCIAL CAPITAL

7 The Appropriation of Computer and Internet Access by Low-Income Urban Youth in Argentina

Sebastián Benítez Larghi, Carolina Aguerre, Marina Laura Calamari, Ariel Fontecoba, Marina Moguillansky, Jimena Orchuela, and Jimena Ponce de León

8 Impact of Public Access to Computers and the Internet on the Connectedness of Rural Malaysians

Nor Aziah Alias, Marhaini Mohd Noor, Francisco J. Proenza, Haziah Jamaludin, Izaham Shah Ismail, and Sulaiman Hashim

9 The Capacity-Enhancing Power of ICT: The Case of Rural Community-Based Organizations in the Peruvian Andes

Jorge Bossio, Juan Fernando Bossio, and Laura León with the collaboration of María Alejandra Campos and Gabriela Perona

III IMPACT ON WOMEN

10 Women and Cybercafés in Uttar Pradesh

Nidhi Mehta and Balwant Singh Mehta

11 The Impact of Public Access to Telecenters: Social Appropriation of ICT by Chilean Women

Alejandra Phillippi and Patricia Peña

12 Cybercafés and Community ICT Training Centers: Empowering Women Migrant Workers in Thailand

Nikos Dacanay, Mary Luz Feranil, Ryan V. Silverio, and Mai M. Taqueban

IV A PLACE TO LEARN, A PLACE TO PLAY, A PLACE TO DREAM, A PLACE TO FALL FROM GRACE

13 Public Access Impact and Policy Implications

Francisco J. Proenza

with the collaboration of Erwin A. Alampay, Roxana Barrantes, Hernán Galperín, Abiodun Jagun, George Sciadas, Ramata Molo Thioune, and Kentaro Toyama

About the Authors

Index

To Amy Mahan

Amy Kathleen Mahan’s career was marked by a commitment to research and its effective dissemination to improve the communication opportunities of the disadvantaged, as a foundation for human and social development. The focus of much of her work was on telecommunication reform and information and communication technology (ICT) policies, particularly in developing countries.

Although she was a productive researcher, Amy chose to devote most of her activity to helping others through her exceptional skills in research support, editing, and report preparation. She had a rare talent for integrating technical production and substantive content editing to make research results more reader-friendly. She strongly believed the weakest link in the research process was dissemination, and she demonstrated innovation and imagination to improve its effectiveness wherever she worked. She was a team player who preferred to work collaboratively.

Amy Mahan coordinated the Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies (LIRNE.NET) from Montevideo, Uruguay, and was a member of the Research Working Group of the Global Impact Study of Public Access to Information and Communication Technologies. She was also an active member of the Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (DIRSI) and a founder of Fundación Comunica.

Amy left us at age 47 on March 5, 2009. She left suddenly, giving no warning. She did not want us to be distracted by her illness. She wanted to be known for what she thought, what she wrote, whom she helped.

There are two predominant motivations for investing in and building physical spaces with computers and connections to the Internet: 1) because there is a scarcity of ICT resources that the endeavor seeks to fill (and perhaps benefit from); and 2) because there is a need to build up community resources....

The literature assumes the importance of sustainability for community access points. But perhaps what is needed is a more holistic picture which widens the frame to view and accept some public access points as necessarily ephemeral and fleeting. In many instances what is required for adoption is the impetus (and attraction) of introduction to ICT services and applications, rather than a sustained relationship to provide this access. The establishment of a community capacity building access point considers the broader skill base of the community in its evaluations. Likewise, a commercial (or non-profit) enterprise simply seeking to fulfill an access gap should also be posited in context of the community it is serving and in context of shifts in local ICT adoption indicators during its lifespan.

As is often the case for social exclusion (gender being a key example), lack of data is still a key constraint for measuring positive effects and progress generally. If the design for the telecenter or cybercafé does not particularly target women and girls, or poor people, the handicapped, elderly, people who don’t speak the official language, or others with special circumstances or needs, it is not likely to collect indicators on the access or use by these subgroups of the premises and ICT services. And, on the other hand, the challenges of simultaneously confronting ICT and a public place may prove insurmountable for some socially marginalized sectors. (From internal memoranda prepared by Amy Mahan, 2008)

Amy Mahan’s foremost interest was in ICT as a tool for social inclusion and a means to help women and traditionally marginalized peoples improve their lives and communities. Amy was committed to academic rigor and to learning from field observations and analysis to inform our investments and policy prescriptions, and she understood that rigor required thoroughness and an understanding of context.

At the time of her passing, Amy had made substantial contributions to the research and design of two ICTs for development programs.

It is with deep gratitude for her scholarship, personal courage, and humanity that we honor our friend and colleague by dedicating this book to her memory.

Foreword

Amy Mahan was no stranger to shared Internet use. While living in Quito, Ecuador, in the mid-1990s, she collaborated internationally on various academic and research projects, including editing a book with colleagues in Denmark and Canada via what she called her sneakernet—a network configuration that involved putting her shoes on and jogging to the local Internet café to download email, conduct research, and share her findings. She worked from a home office, and shared access was the only option available: Quito’s telecom infrastructure was notoriously poor, and commercial Internet access was a monopoly service provided by a bank determined to apply its usurious lending practices to its Internet business model.

At the time, affordable access was often (and naïvely) seen as the only obstacle to the Internet for all initiatives in developing countries. The solutions proposed were equally simplistic: privatize telecoms, invest massively in infrastructure development, and enable telecenters, Internet cafés, and other shared-use solutions for the poor.

Fast forward to 2014, and the world has changed. The mobile phone is everywhere, more than 2.5 billion people are online, and as mobile phones are increasingly Internet-enabled, it seems that the ubiquitous Internet might even be within reach. Why should we worry about shared public access when “everyone” has a smart phone?

The most obvious answer to that question is that in fact not everyone does have a smart phone. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that there are 83.7 mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in the developed world but only 19.0 per 100 inhabitants in Africa and 21.1 across the developing world.1 One of the reasons that shared public access continues to be important is that for many people, it is still the only access available. However, that is far from the only reason. Results from the Global Impact Study of Public Access2 and from the research documented in this book provide some surprising findings. Even people with home access to computers and the Internet use public access. In some cases this is because the access is faster or the computers better, but other reasons include the technical support provided by staff and other users or simply because Internet cafés offer people a chance to mingle with friends or other people.

The reports in this book take a fresh look at shared public access to computers and the Internet and provide evidence that the benefits of shared public access go far beyond simply providing affordable access to the infrastructure. Public access venues are also places for learning, sharing, working, finding opportunities, empowering, and solidarity. Facebook may be The Social Network with more than a billion users globally, but Internet cafés and telecenters are hundreds of thousands of social networks, providing tens of millions of users locally with opportunities to improve their livelihoods.

Amy Mahan’s foremost interest was in ICT and media as tools for social inclusion and a means to help women, the poor, and traditionally marginalized peoples improve their lives and communities. Her professional involvement in this area included being a key member of the research team for the Global Impact Study of Public Access to ICTs, but she also developed several handbooks and multimedia kits as training tools for the use of ICT in developing countries, co-authored and edited books on subjects as diverse as global media governance and telecommunications regulation reform, and served as production editor of the respected academic journal Telecommunication Policy.

Amy was also committed to giving young researchers the opportunity to develop their skills and expertise. The Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Program recognizes this commitment to the next generation of researchers, and Amy would have been pleased and honored to have this research dedicated to her. She would, however, have been much happier to have been able to work alongside the young scholars.

Bruce Girard

March 2014

Notes

1. Key ICT indicators for developed and developing countries and the world, International Telecommunications Union. http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/statistics/2014/ITU_Key_2005-2014_ICT_data.xls

2. Araba Sey, Chris Coward, François Bar, George Sciadas, Chris Rothschild, and Lucas Koepke. 2013. Connecting People for Development: Why Public Access ICTs Matter. Global Impact Study Research Report. http://tascha.uw.edu/publications/connecting-people-for-development/.

Acknowledgments

This book was made possible by the Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Program, a competitive research grant initiative funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre and implemented by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, in collaboration with scholars from the University of San Andrés, Buenos Aires, the University of the Philippines, Manila, and South Africa’s LINK Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, together with partner institutions from ten participating countries.

Many people helped make the publication of this book possible. The authors gratefully acknowledge the following contributions.

SIRCA colleagues at Nanyang Technological University: Ang Peng Hwa, Arul Chib, Joanna Tan Keng Ling, Naowarat Narula, and Sri Ranjini Mei Hua, as well as IDRC’s program officer, Chaitali Sinha, made detailed comments on the draft submission guidelines. All their suggestions were adopted. SIRCA staff shared invaluable resources and experiences, which served as important guidelines in our own program development. Overall, SIRCA staff remained a frequent and reliable source of information and counsel.

The Global Impact Study (GIS) staff—namely, Araba Sey and Christopher Coward (University of Washington) and François Bar (University of Southern California)— helped us, particularly during the early research planning stages. Another GIS team member, George Sciadas, also part of our research team and co-editor of this book, provided a particularly helpful link with Global Impact Study survey research work.

Professor Steven Pace, grounded theory and ICT specialist from Central Queensland University, gave support to the qualitative analysis work of our teams in Chile and Argentina.

Raul Pertierra, anthropologist and ICT specialist from Ateneo de Manila University, assisted our research team working in Thailand.

Ricardo Gomez, Assistant Professor and Chair of the Information & Society Center at the University of Washington’s Information School, kindly made available advance copies of his research findings on public access. This material provided an overview of the relative significance of various kinds of public access venues worldwide.

The implementation of the Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Program relied on the assistance of many Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) staff. Special recognition is due to Rector Josep Joan Moreso, Research Vice Rector; Clara Riba, Social Sciences Director; and our colleagues David Sancho, Jacint Jordana, Miquel Oliver, Josep Jofre, Robert Fishman, Willem Saris, and Lorena Camats.

At IDRC, Frank Tulus was instrumental in getting the program underway and accompanied the research by providing guidance and support whenever needed. Laurent Elder championed the initial idea for a complementary capacity-building program to the Global Impact Study and remained supportive of the program throughout its implementation. Raymond Hyma provided assistance with the program’s website, especially during the translation process. IDRC’s Nola Haddadian and Matthew Smith, and MIT’s Marguerite B. Avery and Katherine A. Almeida provided invaluable assistance getting this book published. University of Florida Professor Mario Ariet helped check the proofs. Finally, IDRC’s Heloise Emdon, Ben Petrazzini, Michael Clarke, and Florencio Ceballos offered continuous support to the program.

Special thanks are extended to Amy Mahan’s family: Bruce Girard, her husband; Danielle Girard, their daughter; and Marilyn Mahan, Amy’s mother, for allowing us the honor of naming the program in Amy’s memory. Bruce, a renowned specialist in ICT for development, also kindly wrote the foreword to this book.

1 Introduction

Francisco J. Proenza

Abstract

This book presents the findings of ten research teams that worked between 2009 and 2012 across three continents under the auspices of the Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Program to Assess the Impact of Public Access to ICT. It seeks to fill critical gaps in the research literature regarding the impact of public shared access to computers and the Internet. In this introductory chapter, we present the background to the preparation of the book and summarize findings as we overview how the book is organized.

Background to the Preparation of This Book

Worldwide, cybercafés are by far the most prevalent type of public access venue. Cybercafés thrive in urban areas, but their survival is challenged in rural settings by low digital literacy and high maintenance and connectivity costs. Two other common venue types are libraries, most often funded and operated by government, and telecenters, mostly funded by government but at times also by private foundations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), or international donors, and run by a broad range of institutions, including public agencies, NGOs, religious organizations, and local groups.

Governments have made large investments in public access, some by equipping libraries as venues, but most by subsidizing telecenters of various types, including commercially oriented centers. These interventions have been driven by the desire to include low-income groups in the digital age by expanding access to the Internet at low cost by sharing resources. There have been urban initiatives, but the more significant efforts have sought to bring the presumed benefits of public access to rural communities. Public interventions are usually based on the presumption that the better-substantiated impacts of Internet use can be obtained through public access, while some of the negative effects of public access are observed and speculated on but largely ignored.

All over the world, cybercafé clients receive services they deem beneficial enough to justify paying for their cost. There is also considerable anecdotal evidence suggesting that public access users—of all types of venues—derive significant benefits. What has been missing is a comprehensive body of scientifically validated knowledge regarding what works and what doesn’t and under what circumstances.

This book presents a systematic assessment of the impact of public access across cultures (ten countries in three continents) for a variety of venues operating in different settings for the purpose of informing public policy.

Participating research teams shared three objectives: (1) assess impacts with scientific rigor, (2) acknowledge the reach and limitations of findings, and (3) formulate practical recommendations. Within this broad framework, cybercafés located in urban areas and mid-size towns are examined in the China, India, and Jordan chapters; rural telecenters in the Cameroon and Malaysia chapters; and comparisons across venue types in the Argentina, Chile, Peru, Rwanda, and Thailand chapters. Mixed approaches to data gathering were used in most studies, but qualitative approaches were dominant in Argentina, Chile, Thailand, and Peru, and quantitative approaches were dominant in China, India, Jordan, Malaysia, and Rwanda. Research teams were multidisciplinary: in Thailand the team had expertise in anthropology, sociology, gender studies, and human rights; in China, in economics, systems engineering, marketing and psychology; in Chile, in communications, culture, and gender analysis; in Argentina, in sociology, anthropology, and social communications; and in Malaysia, in education and instructional technology.

The study of different contexts enables the appreciation of differences in policy concerns and under what conditions and to what extent lessons from one setting are applicable elsewhere. Multidisciplinary approaches bring new perspectives and insights. Quantitative methods let us assess the extent of a phenomenon, while qualitative approaches enable a deeper, more nuanced understanding.

In the context of development impact studies, variety in settings and in data and conceptual approaches is an ideal that is seldom achieved in practice because of the high investment and coordination costs involved. The research reported in this book was made possible by the Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Program, a competitive research grant initiative funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and implemented by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, in collaboration with scholars from Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires; the University of the Philippines, Manila; South Africa’s LINK Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; and partner institutions from participating countries.

Organization

The book presents the results of field research in three parts. Part I covers public access impacts on users as individuals, part II on society and networks, and part III on women. Part IV contains a single final overview chapter.

Part I: Impact on Personal Achievement and Well-Being

Part I begins with an assessment of cybercafé users in an Arab country: Jordan. It presents the findings of a survey covering 336 users of twenty-four randomly selected cybercafés in Amman. The study finds overwhelming positive perceptions of impact in users’ lives in two areas: communications and social networking, and improving education and learning; and less widespread but positive impacts in a third area, income and employment.

The second chapter in this part examines the impacts of ICT training in public access venues on job skills and employment in Rwanda. A purposive survey was taken of 418 white-collar and office workers who occupy positions likely to involve the use of basic computer skills (e.g., secretaries, receptionists, customer service agents, administrative assistants, finance officers, human resource managers, and public access venue employees). Eighty-seven percent in this group report “getting a new or better job” as an objective for wanting to improve their ICT skills. Sixty-seven percent consider that knowledge of the Internet plays a very important or an important role in the job application process, and 41 percent took an ICT skills test during recruitment for their present job. The skills acquired from public access venues differ and affect job prospects differently depending on venue type, location, competence of instructor, duration of the training, and sex of trainees. The training model used by government-sponsored telecenters appears to be most effective, and its expansion should be considered.

Chapters 4 and 5 cover China, the country with the world’s largest cybercafé user population. Surveys of 975 café users and 964 nonusers were conducted.

The objective of the first China chapter is to understand user motivations and assess whether personal objectives are fulfilled and the extent to which achievement is affected by Internet café use. A first noteworthy finding of the analysis in this chapter, applicable in China and everywhere else, is that the goal content of Internet and Internet café use is predominantly intrinsic. For the most part, people use the Internet and Internet Cafés not because of external pressures or rewards, but as part of their overall search to satisfy basic psychological needs.

Internet café user life goals are not very different from those of nonusers. The goal most highly cherished by both users and nonusers is to “learn more knowledge.” Young (under age 35) urban male users and urban male and female student users report statistically significant higher achievement than their nonuser cohorts for this top priority goal. Young (under age 35) urban male users and female urban student users also report higher achievement than nonusers for the goal “have fun, entertain myself.” Urban female users report higher achievement for the goals “keep frequent contact with those who don’t live nearby” and “relax, relieve tension.” As Internet café users gain experience using the technology, the sense of accomplishment appears to wane for the goals “keep frequent contact with those who don’t live nearby” by urban females and “have fun, entertain myself” by urban males and urban female students. These are significant findings suggesting that nonusers are missing out in the achievement of goals they cherish and, in the case of learning and communicating, are instrumental and valued by society.

In the second China chapter (chapter 5), we find that Internet addiction is not as widespread as is often reported in the media, and we identify some of the features of users and use practices that seem to increase the risk of overuse.

Part I ends with a review of a quasi-experiment in five rural communities of Cameroon, where télécentres communautaires polyvalents (TCPs) are the only places from which students can connect to the Internet. The self-reported academic performance of 1,015 secondary school students interviewed in the five TCPs is used as a yardstick to compare the performance of students who know how to use the Internet and those who do not. Key to academic success are long hours of after-school study and a motivation to learn, but those students who study hard and are motivated to learn get Internet skills in the TCPs in larger proportion than underachievers. The evidence further suggests that, beyond study effort, having access to the Internet gives mid- and upper secondary students a performance edge. There is however some evidence suggesting that spending too much time at the TCP may thwart academic achievement.

Part II: Facilitating Inclusion and Enabling the Buildup of Social Capital

The first chapter of part II examines the ways in which Argentina’s low-income urban youth use new technologies in their daily lives. Three venues located in the county of La Matanza are considered: a cybercafé, an access and training center run by a local grassroots organization, and a community technology center run by an organization with government support. The last two centers do not provide access to the public at large, and therefore cannot be considered public access venues. Instead, they focus on providing ICT training services that are valued by our target group of low-income youths. We refer to these two centers as community ICT training centers (CITCs).

The study’s main finding is that the cybercafé and the two CITCs contribute to the social inclusion of youth in poor urban environments. They also satisfy training needs that are not met by market-oriented institutes or formal schooling.

Cybercafés are also valuable as social spaces where young people can put into practice what they learn in the community centers and where the main activities revolve around communication and entertainment over the Internet. Women are less frequent visitors to the cybercafés and therefore derive fewer benefits from their use than men. We recommend the establishment of ICT training centers in marginalized communities, where high rates of alienation among young people are observed. We also encourage the strengthening of links between these spaces and the school environment and the promotion of greater participation of women, especially in cybercafés and job training programs.

In Malaysia we consider social connectedness among users of the country’s forty-two rural Internet centers (RICs). Social connectedness, defined as the “feeling of belongingness, being linked to and related to a network, community or group that one trusts and interacts with,” is a building block of social capital. When a socially connected group establishes trusting relationships, it often finds ways to cooperate in joint activities that are beyond the possibilities of individual members. We examine 300 responses to an online survey on connectedness and find that most RIC users feel a moderate degree of connection, and 27 percent report a relatively high degree of connection with their social network. Nearly 20 percent of respondents feel significantly connected with community leaders.

Part II concludes with an analysis of the impact of public access on the organizational capacity of nine grassroots organizations located in a rural district of Peru’s Andean region. Public access venues such as telecenters and cabinas públicas (Peru’s cybercafés) help make communication processes more effective and facilitate meetings and coordination. These impacts are greatest when the venues have links to the objectives and goals of the organization and when those actors who facilitate information flows with external agents use the Internet to search for funding opportunities. Some organizational skills are more likely to be impacted by information technology (e.g., those related to networking, leadership, infrastructure, and external communications) than others (e.g., supervision, monitoring, and evaluation of plans). The promotion of public access venues as part of universal Internet access initiatives should consider as part of its goal not just the provision of access at the individual level but the inclusion of rural organizations; and initiatives seeking to foster a more productive use of technology by grassroots organizations should focus on developing those capacities that are most impacted.

Part III: Impact on Women

Part III opens with a discussion of why cybercafés are off-limits to most women in two mid-sized towns of Uttar Pradesh. Limitations on access by women surfaced in several chapters where cybercafés were the subject of study. In China, women account for only 27 percent of survey respondents; in Jordan, for only 24 percent. The original focus of our India study was cybercafé user objectives, but when we found only 12 females in our 300-user sample (4 percent), it became evident that the important societal impact was the exclusion of women from this type of venue. Even acknowledging the limited representativeness of our samples, these figures are alarming because cybercafés are by far the most prevalent type of public access venue worldwide. Accordingly, we conducted a supplementary survey of 200 women (100 users and 100 nonusers) to determine why so few women in these towns were using cybercafés.

Most women in Uttar Pradesh are poor and illiterate, and they have minimal participation in the formal economy. The caste system is firmly entrenched and the society is conservative and generally restricts the movement of women outside the family or immediate community. Females in mid-sized towns generally have little decision-making autonomy, power, or financial control within the household. It is mainly working women and female students who come out of their homes. Others rarely come out of their homes, do not talk to strangers, and are always guarded by male family members; when interacting with outsiders, male family members reply on the women’s behalf. The environment at the cybercafés is generally considered hostile to women because these venues tend to be crowded with young men. Hence, women and their families do not feel comfortable with the notion of women visiting cybercafés. Generally, illiterate females engaged primarily in household activities felt that cybercafés were not useful to them. Some were not even interested in taking part in the survey. Those who do use cybercafés tend to be better off, educated women from higher castes, and find them useful.

There is an urgent need to increase literacy and enhance awareness of the benefits of the technology among women and their male family members, and to implement programs offering cybercafé operators incentives to make their venues more welcoming and accommodating to women.

The second chapter in this part examines the impact on women of public access through Chile’s urban Quiero mi Barrio telecenter network. The study is based on interviews with men and women in two centers located in relatively new neighborhoods created as part of government-sponsored housing. Overall, the interviewees feel these centers have had a positive impact on their communities. These facilities are perceived to be particularly valuable for children and young people, as places where they can learn and do their homework conveniently close to home and at no cost. Adult women also appreciate the digital literacy training imparted in these venues. Impact appears to be highest for women because their options to access the Internet from other venues (e.g., cybercafés) are more limited than for men. The analysis suggests that the State should strengthen urban neighborhood telecenters to better serve women’s needs, encourage greater participation of women, and help women develop digital skills, realize their aspirations, and meet their everyday needs.

Part III concludes with an assessment of the impact of public access on women migrants from Burma in the border town of Mae Sot, Thailand. The migrant population outnumbers Thais in border towns such as Mae Sot but is excluded from Thailand’s ICT development plans. Migrant women in Mae Sot have nevertheless benefited indirectly from two types of venues that facilitate public access: cybercafés and two NGO-operated centers that provide ICT skills training to members of migrant organizations and access to computers and the Internet to their students (i.e. CITCs). These facilities enable dislocated ethnic peoples with families, relatives, friends, and work partners living outside Mae Sot (e.g., Chiang Mai, Bangkok, inside Burma, and in resettled countries) to access the Internet, which for them represents a doorway to a wider space for maintaining and expanding social relationships beyond the geographical boundaries of Mae Sot. Physical distance is partly overcome by the proximity of virtual relationships. Through email and video chat using Skype, Yahoo Messenger, and Gchat, the women in Mae Sot are able to repair kinship ties and extend their familial obligations as daughters, sisters, cousins, and nieces who are physically distant.

Women migrants also use the Internet as a virtual cultural headquarters, providing a space for cultural expression and entertainment. The women express themselves online in their ethnic languages when using email or chat, either in Burmese fonts (which they download online) or in English alphabet. The websites of the community-based organizations advocating for migrants are in Burmese and ethnic languages. The women are also active participants in cultural entertainment—downloading, uploading, and watching and listening to Burmese ethnic music videos and celebrations/festivals.

Use of Internet cafés by migrant women in Mae Sot is in practice limited by direct discrimination of some Thai operators and by the women’s own fears of being detected as illegal migrants by Thai police, which could lead to their being detained, harassed, or even deported. Access to computers and the Internet is feasible only for migrant women who have their own computers and home connections, or who connect from their place of work (mainly community-based organizations) or from a few Thai-owned cybercafés that are friendly and accommodating to the needs of Burmese migrants. Programmatic ICT education needs to be developed and implemented through the cooperation of NGOs, the private sector, and the Thai state. There should also be a concerted effort to influence the Thai government to change policies toward migrants and implement ICT policies for marginalized non-Thais living in Thailand. Without these changes, the welfare of migrants and ICT penetration among migrants cannot progress significantly.

Part IV: A Place to Learn, a Place to Play, a Place to Dream, a Place to Fall from Grace

The book’s final chapter highlights findings and draws on prior studies in search for patterns of use and impact across countries to inform critical issues of public access policy.

I Impact on Personal Achievement and Well-Being

2 User Perceptions of Impact of Internet Cafés in Amman, Jordan

Ghaleb Rabab’ah, Ali Farhan AbuSeileek, Francisco J. Proenza, Omar Fraihat, and Saif Addeen Alrababah

Abstract

This study analyzes users’ perception of the impact of Internet cafés on three aspects of their lives: social networking, education and learning, and income and employment. The study is based on a sample of 336 Internet café users and twenty-four operators in Amman, Jordan. Internet café users strongly perceive that these venues have improved their lives by expanding their social networks and improving their education and learning. Perceived impact on income or employment was lower than for the other two impact areas but was not insignificant, especially among male users.

The Jordanian government’s policy of increasing the number of licenses for private café operators is to be commended. There is, however, an area of major concern. Although women benefit from cybercafés as much as men, comparatively few women use these venues, and those who use them do so infrequently. The disparity is most acute in low-income neighborhoods. Understanding whether the observed gender disparities are culturally determined or the result of the environment prevalent in cybercafés and designing and implementing suitable policies to increase women’s use of cybercafés should be high priorities for both researchers and government officials.

Introduction

Jordan’s privately owned Internet cafés generally provide basic services for a fee (e.g., Internet access, email, chat, games, and printing) and often also serve hot and cold drinks. Some cafés divide their space into booths or cubicles, allowing privacy and a quiet environment. According to Ministry of Trade statistics (June 6, 2010), there are 546 Internet cafés in Jordan distributed among twelve governorates, about 193 (35 percent) in Amman.

Based on 250 interviews with Internet café users in Jordan and Egypt (200 interviews in Amman and Zarka, Jordan, and 50 in Cairo), Wheeler (2004) found that even people with a high school education or less, not fluent in English, and sometimes unemployed are drawn to Internet cafés, where they surf sometimes as many as forty hours a week. The Internet helped users meet new people and stay in touch with family and friends, and it enabled them to learn new things, including practical skills such as typing and English language use. It was also an important tool for job hunting, checking agricultural prices, or corresponding with potential partners to set up new business opportunities. Wheeler’s (2007) study of twenty-five women in five Internet cafés in Cairo gives compelling examples and identifies three kinds of benefits for female users: “1. Increases information access and professional development; 2. Expands or maintains social networks and social capital; and 3. Transforms social and political awareness.”

This chapter presents the findings of a survey conducted in twenty-four Internet cafés in Amman in 2010, where 336 users were asked to provide basic personal information and information about their activities while visiting Internet cafés, and to assess the impact Internet cafés were having on their lives. We do not single out or test for the existence of specific negative effects, but instead we focus on the effect of “instrumental” activities. The study does, however, recognize that cybercafé users may experience both positive and negative experiences. We examine user activities, but we also assess user perceptions of impact in three areas commonly regarded as potentially important: education and learning, social networking, and income and employment.

Samples and Data Collection

Of 193 Internet cafés in Amman, a representative sample of twenty-four was selected from three different geographical areas.

When our survey was conducted in mid-2010, half of these establishments had been in business for at least five years, another six had been set up two to five years earlier, and the other six were newer. Fifty-eight percent had between six and fifteen computers, and 37 percent had between sixteen and thirty. About 50 percent charge 0.5 Jordanian dinars (JD) (about US$0.70) per hour, 38 percent 1 JD, and the rest a bit more. Most of these venues offer Internet, printing, typing, CD burning, and scanning services. About 50 percent also offered computer repair services. A few venues offered a variety of other services, including fax, snacks, and public phone, and three offered formal training. Twenty-three of the twenty-four Internet café operators interviewed were men, and one was a woman. Most were between twenty and thirty-four years old and held a BA.

Users visiting these twenty-four cafés were interviewed about their perceptions regarding the impact of these venues on three major areas of their lives: social networking, education and learning, and income and employment. These Internet cafés were visited at two different times of day: morning and evening.

The following procedure was employed. The interviews were conducted in Arabic. The data were collected over eight days (March 10–17, 2010). A team leader arranged for each interviewer to visit three Internet cafés at two time intervals (between 10 A.M. and 2 P.M. and between 3 and 6 P.M.). Permission was obtained from the café operators and visitors. Eight people (seven men and one woman) collected the data.

Participants were told in advance that no names would be revealed, that the study was strictly for research purposes, and that the information collected would be treated confidentially. To encourage participation in the survey, café visitors who agreed to be interviewed were given a prepaid telephone card as compensation for the time spent with the interviewer.

About 30 percent of the women and 10 percent of the men approached in the cafés refused to answer. The reason given was that they were too busy and did not have time to answer the questionnaire. Interviewers were encouraged to stay in the café to try to ensure that a good number of female café users were interviewed. Had there been more female interviewers, some of the women users who refused might have been persuaded to participate.

Except for the observed refusal by some café visitors to be interviewed, there were no major departures from the data-collection plan.

A total of 336 Internet café users (255 men and 81 women) were interviewed. The observed gender imbalance is probably due to Jordanian women’s general reticence to visit an Internet café, but it may also be attributed in part to the use of male interviewers and collection of data during the winter season, which witnessed heavy rain. Most women and some men are reluctant to go out in the rain, especially those who do not own a car. Collecting some data in the evening also might have influenced the type of user respondents, with a bias toward a greater number of students ages 16 to 18: most schoolchildren finish their schooling by 1 or 2 P.M., and more young students will be visiting these Internet cafés at these times.

The operators of these twenty-four cafés were also interviewed to understand their perspective regarding the impact on users of these venues. There were three owners operating their Internet cafés and twenty-one operators. In all, complete data were collected from 336 users and twenty-four owner-operators.

Table 2.1
User Survey Respondents by Gender and Age

Findings

Basic Features of Sample Users

There is considerable gender imbalance in the user sample: 255 respondents were male and only 81 were female. Nearly half the sample (48.8 percent) is made up of young men between the ages of 16 and 24 (table 2.1).

The most frequent age group for both gender cohorts is 20 to 24 years (table 2.1). Proportionately, there are fewer young females ages 16 to 19 (15 percent) than males (23 percent), and more women ages 25 to 49 (35 percent) than men (33 percent).

There were proportionately more women students in the sample than men (58 percent vs. 45 percent; table 2.2). One-third of male respondents and one-fifth of female respondents were employees. Sixteen percent of users were self-employed. Self-employment was more common among men (19 percent) than women (6 percent). About 13 percent of the women interviewed were unemployed, compared with 4 percent of the men.

Nearly all users had completed at least secondary education; only 4 percent of male users had completed only primary (table 2.3). The educational profile of women and men users is similar, with the majority (52 percent for males and 58 percent for females) having undergraduate or even postgraduate degrees (table 2.3).

In a sample composed primarily of young people, most users were single (77 percent), but some were married (20 percent), and a few (about 1 percent) were divorced.

The majority of users (54 percent) are dependent on their families for financial support, more so in the case of women (73 percent) than of men (48 percent). Because family income figures given by a large proportion of survey respondents are based on their perception of what other family members earn, family income figures thus obtained are subject to a wide margin of error. With that caveat in mind, female respondents appear to come from better-off families: about 42 percent of females but only 26 percent of males reported monthly family income higher than 1,500 JD (table 2.4).

Table 2.2
Users by Gender, Age, and Occupation

Home Connection, Venue Choice, and Use Patterns

Many cybercafé users have an Internet connection at home (43 percent), but the majority of users (57 percent) do not, and the option to connect from home is least common among adults ages 25 and older (35 percent). Home access also appears more prevalent among men (45 percent) than women (40 percent) (table 2.5).

About 73 percent of users travel less than 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) to the cafés they visit (table 2.6), and about 88 percent visit cafés once a week or more often (table 2.7). The most common reason for choosing to use a particular cybercafé (table 2.8) is that it is close to home (42 percent), but other reasons were also given by respondents: friends also visit (21 percent) or proximity to their place of study (21 percent) or work (16 percent).

Table 2.3
Users by Gender, Age, and Educational Achievement

Table 2.4
Users by Gender, Age, and Monthly Family Income

JD = Jordanian dinars.

Frequent users of cybercafés (i.e., users who visited at least three times a week) account for 78 percent of the men and 44 percent of the women in the sample (table 2.7). Most café visitors spend from one to two hours (44 percent) or two to three hours (32 percent) per visit (table 2.9). Some users were registered members of the cafés they visited (32 percent) or subscribed to monthly plans (3 percent), but the majority (60 percent) paid on a per-visit basis.

User Activities

Survey participants were asked to choose from a list of seventeen activities which may be classified into four broadly defined groups: communication, education and learning, income and employment, and entertainment (tables 2.10a–2.10d). By far the most popular activity among users is communication—primarily by email, an activity in which 64 percent of all users engaged, but also chatting (63 percent) and making calls over the Internet (50 percent; table 2.10a). Among activities involving some form of learning (table 2.10b), searching for news was the most popular (33 percent), followed by application for college admission (31 percent) and to a lesser extent typing or printing homework, especially by women (24 percent). Some users engaged in searching (18 percent) and applying for a job (15 percent), but the most popular income and employment activity (table 2.10c) was buying products online (25 percent), especially among female users (42 percent). Entertainment activities were also popular (table 2.10d). Playing computer games was selected by 38 percent of sample users and was particularly popular among young people ages 16 to 19, both men (59 percent) and women (67 percent).

Table 2.5
Users with Internet Connection at Home, by Gender and Age

Table 2.6
Users by Gender, Age, and Distance Traveled to Internet Café

Table 2.7
Users by Gender, Age, and Frequency of Visits to Internet Cafés

Most websites viewed were in Arabic (64 percent) or English (62 percent). Only rarely were websites in other languages visited.

Using a separate questionnaire, we asked the twenty-four café owners and operators which websites were most frequently used by their customers, and we gave them four options plus a write-in possibility. All twenty-four indicated that networking (email, Facebook, etc.) was most frequently used. News websites were marked by fifteen operators (62 percent), pornographic sites by five (22 percent), and sport sites by one.

Table 2.8
Reason for Using This Venue, by Age and Gender

Note: Respondents could select more than one reason. This is why total responses exceed sample size.

User Perceptions of Impact

Ten indicators were considered, grouped into three categories depending on whether the perceived impact was on social networking, education and learning, or income and employment (tables 2.11a–2.11c). For each indicator, users were given a choice of five options depending on their perception of impact as highly or slightly positive, highly or slightly negative, or no impact.

Social Networking The indicator most frequently ranked highly positive by both men (65 percent) and women (48 percent) was “maintaining communication with family and friends by using social networking” (table 2.11a). The two other social networking indicators—“Meeting new people online” and “Knowing about the culture of other people around the world”—were both ranked highly positive by 38 percent of users and slightly positive by 33 and 38 percent, respectively.

Table 2.9
Users by Gender, Age, and Hours Spent During Each Visit to Internet Cafés

Table 2.10a
Communication Activities Done When Visiting Internet Cafés, by Gender and Age

Note: Percentage figures are in relation to total number of users in the sample.

Table 2.10b
Education and Learning Activities Done When Visiting Internet Cafés, by Gender and Age

Notes: Percentage figures are in relation to total number of users in the sample. Creating web pages or searching for local and international news are only indirectly linked to education and learning.

Education and Learning Using the Internet for educational purposes—for example, doing research online, writing homework, or sending emails to teachers—was perceived as slightly or highly positive by 61 percent of respondents (table 2.11b). Ninety-three percent had positive perceptions of improving computer skills and 84 percent of improving English language skills. Attending online classes and workshops was apparently least useful: 63 percent ranked this activity as having no impact.

There are interesting differences in the responses regarding activities performed and perceptions of impact. The number of users who say they use the venue to conduct research (3 percent; table 2.10b) or type or print out their homework (24 percent; table 2.10b) is relatively small, but when users are asked instead, “Which of the following has had an impact on you from using the Internet at the Internet cafés?”, a larger number of users (38 percent; table 2.11b) report a highly positive impact from “Education (e.g., doing research, writing homework, sending e-mail to teachers),” and an additional 23 percent report a slightly positive impact.

Table 2.10c
Income and Employment Activities Done When Visiting Internet Cafés, by Gender and Age

Notes: Percentage figures are in relation to total number of users in the sample. Strictly speaking, buying products online is not an income-generating activity, except in the sense that users may feel it saves them money.

Income and Employment Impact on income or employment was rated much lower than for the other two impact categories (table 2.11c). Nevertheless, 36 percent of men perceived a (highly or slightly) positive impact on finding a job, 24 percent on getting a promotion, and 27 percent on increasing their income. Women’s perceptions of impact in this area were lower, perhaps on account of the relatively lower rate of labor force participation of the women surveyed (table 2.2).

Table 2.10d
Entertainment Activities Internet Café Users Engage In, by Gender and Age

Nearly 15 percent of respondents had apparently been negatively impacted with respect to “finding a job.” This is the single indicator for which the most negative impact was perceived. Interestingly, however, within the Economic and Employment category, this is also the indicator with the largest proportion of positive impact marks (33 percent; table 2.11c).

Does Having a Home Connection Make a Difference? Because more than 40 percent of café users also had a home connection (table 2.5), it is reasonable to ask to what extent the perceived impact is due to the public access provided—primarily if not exclusively—by the Internet café, as opposed to the impact perceived by café users who had the added convenience of being able to connect to the Internet from their homes.

The one observable marked difference is the negative impact with respect to meeting people online reported by ten female café users, for which there was no counterpart among female users with home connections (table 2.12a). The sample size is small, and we cannot determine whether this difference is statistically significant. Furthermore, because the questions asked refer to online meetings regardless of access place, there is no reason for the place of access to give rise to a difference.

Table 2.11a
User Perceptions of Impact on Social Networking, by Gender

*Includes respondents who left this question unanswered.

Table 2.11b
User Perceptions of Impact on Education and Learning, by Gender

*Includes respondents who left this question unanswered.

Table 2.11c
User Perceptions of Impact on Income and Employment, by Gender

*Includes respondents who left this question unanswered.

Overall, there appears to be no major systematic difference in the perceived impact among Internet café users between those who had Internet at home and those who did not (tables 2.12a–12c). We must conclude that the perceived impacts with respect to the ten indicators result from user access to the Internet, irrespective of the place of access. Internet cafés provide valuable, affordable access to both kinds of users: those who have and those who do not have an Internet connection at home.

Cender Differences

The rate of economic participation among Internet café users—employed plus unemployed as a percentage of the total—is higher among men (55 percent) than among women (42 percent). This lower rate among women users is much higher than for Jordan as a whole, where women’s rate of participation in the labor force is about 15 percent (Tabbaa 2010).

Within the limited subsample of non-dependent respondents ages 20 or older, women seem to have a personal income advantage over males, with only 22 percent of men (twenty-seven observations) reporting monthly income of 700 JD or higher compared with 52 percent (eleven observations) of women (table 2.13).

Women users visit Internet cafés less frequently and spend fewer hours there than men. About 56 percent of the women interviewed visited cybercafés once a week or less frequently, compared with 22 percent of men (table 2.7), whereas 61 percent of men spent two or more hours per visit and only 40 percent of women did (table 2.9). The lower frequency and duration of women’s visits to cybercafés probably apply to Amman’s café user population as a whole and help explain in part our sample’s gender imbalance.

There are no major gender-related differences in user perceptions of impact (tables 2.11a–2.11c). The proportion of women (68 percent) positively impacted, either highly or slightly, in terms of education is higher than that of men (58 percent; table 2.11b), but this may be due to the larger proportion of students among women (58 percent, table 2.2) than among men (44 percent).

Table 2.14 disaggregates interviewees by gender in the twenty-four Internet cafés studied. Women visitors are relatively more important in venues situated near the University of Jordan, a female-dominated institution with a student body that is more than 70 percent female. This is the case of the University Center Café and Evolution Café (numbered 10 and 11 in table 2.14). Also, cafés serving high- and upper middle-class areas of Amman, such as Sweifeyeh and Khalda, exhibit a higher proportion of female users. This includes Waves Café, Rehaf Net, Zorona Café, City View Café, and Hanin Net. Altogether, these seven cafés where women users are in the majority account for 59 percent of the females in our sample, but they do not cater exclusively to women: about 42 percent of their customers are men. In contrast, the dominance of male users in the remaining cafés surveyed is overwhelming: 87 percent male versus 13 percent female.

Table 2.12a
User Perceptions of Impact on Social Networking, by Gender and Whether User had Internet Connection at Home

Table 2.12b
User Perceptions of Impact on Education and Learning, by Gender and Whether User Had Internet Connection at Home

Table 2.12c
User Perceptions of Impact on Income and Employment, by Gender and Whether User Had Internet Connection at Home