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Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing


Pandora turned 70 and she just opened the box again. By Marília Duque

LauraHaapio-Kirk3 July 2019

Photo (CC BY) Marilia Duque.

Author: Marilia Duque

I am packing up to leave my field site after a 15-month ethnography with older people in Sao Paulo. One thing I learned is that a smartphone is not smart by default. Most of the times, specially for older people, a smartphone could be a stupid little thing that releases a new set of problems they now have to deal with, just like a Pandora’s box.

The character of Pandora can be perfectly represented by a 70-year-old lady I met who just received her box in the form of a gift from her son. This pandora’s box contained many gifts: a telephone, camera, calendar and computer and they were all hidden inside a Samsung Galaxy phone. Pandora’s husband warned her: “You should never turn this on. We are not supposed to steal technology from the youngsters”. Pandora then left the smartphone inside its box for weeks until she found out she was not invited to her old school annual reunion. The explanation they gave to her? “It was all set up through our WhatsApp group, dear”. In a mix of rage, sorrow and curiosity, Pandora immediately opened her smartphone’s box and turned it on.

As in the Greek myth, our Pandora also released some plagues and devils she now has to deal with. In her case, she faced fear, low self-steam, and anxiety. She first experienced fear of breaking the device, fear of being charged for something she was not using, and fear of erasing something important, like the pictures of her youngest grandson’s swimming competition. She then experienced a lost of self-esteem because her smartphone’s display was set to sleep after just 30 seconds of inactivity and she just didn’t have the proper time to think about what to do before the screen turned off. And when she asked her son for some help, he simply had no patience to explain to her what was happening. Instead, he took her smartphone from her hands, reset the sleep mode to 5 minutes and gave it back to her saying “it is intuitive, even children are supposed to learn how it works”.  Pandora still doesn’t use her smartphone to its full potential, but a friend from her church has downloaded WhatsApp for her. She has finally joined her old school friends’ group and also her charity group, her meditation group and her family group. Now Pandora experiences anxiety because she has to manage so many messages that just keep coming without interruption. Pandora doesn’t understand that the connection is on 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, but she can choose not to be.

Curiosity was what made Pandora open her smartphone’s box and turn it on for the first time. But it is also curiosity which is the only thing that can save her. With curiosity (and with a little help from her friends), Pandora can dig deeper into her smartphone until she finds a solution – ‘hope’. It is hope that was left remaining in Pandora’s box. She will make ten mistakes for each thing she does right. She will be annoyed because she can enlarge the font size and the display size of her smartphone, but this will disrupt her WhatsApp screen lay-out and she will feel lost again. Even so, with time, she will become more confident to try new things and make new mistakes and learn with them. In doing that, Pandora will discover that one more gift was left inside her smartphone. Pandora will finally experience the smartness of her smartphone. A smartness that is only achieved in practice, when the smartphone provides a solution for someone’s need or desire.

Fear, low self-steam and anxiety will still exist. But Pandora won’t have time to pay much attention to them. She is now checking Google Maps for the easiest way to go to a museum with her friends. She is deciding to take an Uber so she can improve her English with Duolingo during the trip. She is experiencing that fraction of smartness that makes her think that her smartphone was actually a gift from the gods to mankind. A gift she had the curiosity to open and the courage to keep it on.

Enfermeras de enlace y WhatsApp: un ejemplo de ‘inteligencia desde abajo’

Alfonso ManuelOtaegui11 December 2018

Foto de Alfonso Otaegui

Dentro del marco el proyecto Antropología de los Smartphones y del Envejecimiento Inteligente (ASSA), nos hemos comprometido a trabajar colaborativamente con una iniciativa local de salud móvil, o cualquier iniciativa que mejore el acceso a los servicios de salud y el bienestar de las poblaciones con las que hacemos trabajo de campo.

Al principio, aún antes de comenzar mi trabajo de campo, yo imaginaba que esta iniciativa consistiría en la creación e implementación de una aplicación específica de salud móvil, la que respondería a una necesidad observada en el campo. Este abordaje implicaba detectar un vacío en el campo –una necesidad aún no abordada pero advertida por el etnógrafo– y crear una aplicación que llenaría ese vacío. Era en verdad una idea de implementación desde arriba hacia abajo: sería yo quien le daría a la gente algo que necesitaba, pero cuya necesidad ellos mismos desconocían.

Luego de un par de meses, advertí que sería más sensato simplemente describir una aplicación ya en uso –y usada creativamente por la población– y llevar ese uso particular, esa idea local, a otro lugar donde tal idea pudiera ser útil. Este abordaje, que podría definirse como ‘desde abajo hacia arriba’, implica –al contrario del abordaje anterior–  el reconocimiento de la creatividad de las poblaciones locales en la adopción de tecnologías de comunicación, lo que Pype (2017) llama ‘inteligencia desde abajo’. Con el mismo objetivo de llevar buenas ideas de un lugar a otro, también hemos comenzado en el equipo a armar una lista de ‘buenas prácticas’ en atención médica a lo largo y ancho de todos nuestros sitios de campo.

Con este objetivo en mente, pasaré los últimos seis meses de mi trabajo de campo en Santiago llevando adelante una etnografía en un centro oncológico en un hospital público. Este hospital en particular es el único hospital público en Santiago que ha implementado el modelo de cuidado de ‘enfermeras de enlace’ o ‘nurse navigator’ (Devine 2017).

Las enfermeras de enlace trabajan como mediadoras entre los pacientes oncológicos y el sistema médico y burocrático de un hospital público en una zona de bajos recursos. Los tratamientos oncológicos implican dos complejidades para el paciente: la complejidad médica del tratamiento en sí, y la burocracia del sistema de salud pública. Los diversos tratamientos oncológicos pueden tener variados efectos sobre distintos sistemas del cuerpo, por lo que seguir el tratamiento implica manejar mucha información. La gestión del tratamiento implica una serie de procedimientos (diagnósticos de imagen, sesiones de quimioterapia, exámenes de sangre, etc.) que requieren recetas y turnos, que tienen que llevarse a cabo en un orden específico, y dentro de cierto tiempo (si no, las probabilidades de mejora decaen). Las enfermeras de enlace gestionan el tratamiento para el paciente, ya que tienen conocimientos para enfrentar ambos tipos de complejidades.

Según el oncólogo Bruno Nervi, presidente de la fundación Chile sin Cáncer, hay cerca de 100 oncólogos en Chile, cuando se necesitan 400 (55.000 personas son diagnosticadas con cáncer cada año) (‘La Fundación Chile sin cáncer (…)’ 2018). Dado el gran número de pacientes, los oncólogos no tienen el tiempo de explicar todos los detalles del tratamiento. Las enfermeras que trabajan en la sala de quimioterapia enfrentan el mismo problema, ya que tratan de atender tantos pacientes como sea posible. Las enfermeras de enlace, entonces, llenan este vacío al educar a los pacientes sobre los detalles de la enfermedad y su tratamiento y al mediar ente los pacientes y el complejo sistema burocrático de la salud pública de Chile. Ellas hacen todas las citas para exámenes, análisis de sangre y demás –lo que requiere mucho papeleo– y se mantienen en contacto con el paciente en caso de que éste tenga alguna duda o inquietud. Estas enfermeras dedicadas constituyen un factor humano en los servicios de salud que ninguna aplicación puede reemplazar. Las enfermeras de enlace, sin embargo, sí usan una aplicación, la aplicación de mensajería más usada por los pacientes: WhatsApp. Según las enfermeras de enlace, WhatsApp les da la capacidad de usar los varios modos de comunicación según las particularidades y necesidades de cada paciente: algunos prefieren una llamada por teléfono, otros se sienten tranquilos al ver una foto de la receta o turno de examen, algunos necesitan un mensaje de audio que puedan escuchar varias veces hasta entender (muchos pacientes son de bajos recursos con escaso nivel educativo). Además, las enfermeras de enlace están disponibles para los pacientes por cualquier duda o pregunta que puedan tener. Estas enfermeras están ahí para ellos, para responder sus inquietudes y confortarlos, ya que el tratamiento y esta relación de cuidado a distancia puede llegar a durar años.

Daniel Miller, investigador coordinador del proyecto ASSA, escribió en su último libro ‘The Comfort of People’ sobre el uso de nuevos medios de comunicación con pacientes terminales con cuidados paliativos. En ese libro Miller recomienda crear un protocolo de uso de nuevos medios entre paciente y personal de salud (2017: 218). El uso de WhatsApp por parte de las enfermeras de enlace de hecho sigue un protocolo que se fue desarrollando en los últimos años a partir de la experiencia. Yo intentaré describir este protocolo y este uso de WhatsApp y construir un modelo que pueda ser replicado. Realmente tengo la esperanza de poder llevar esta buena idea que se desarrolló localmente a otros hospitales públicos de Chile.



Devine, A. (2017, 3 de abril). The Nurse Navigator: A Patient’s Compass On The Healthcare Journey. Extraído de https://nurse.org/articles/nurse-navigator-career-path-salary-job-description/

La Fundación Chile sin cáncer y su contribución para cambiar la historia del cáncer en Chile. (2018, 15 de octubre). Extraído de https://www.uc.cl/es/la-universidad/noticias/31765-la-fundacion-chilesincancer-y-su-contribucion-para-cambiar-la-historia-del-cancer-en-chile


Pype, K. (2017). Smartness from Below: Variations on Technology and Creativity in Contemporary Kinshasa. En C. C. Mavhunga (Ed.), What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa? (pp. 97–115). Cambridge, Massachussetts: The MIT Press.

Nurse navigators and WhatsApp: an example of smartness from below

Alfonso ManuelOtaegui8 December 2018

Photo by Alfonso Otaegui













Living alone vs. loneliness: Notes from a Milanese neighbourhood

ShireenWalton1 September 2018

Photo (CC BY) Shireen Walton

One of the key features of living in Milan are the characteristic apartment buildings (pictured below). Built in the early 20th century, these buildings, known as ‘palazzo’ (palazzi pl.), have housed generations of families, groups and individuals over the decades; Italian and non-Italian, working and middle-class.

Typical apartment buildings in the Milan fieldsite. Photo (CC BY) Shireen Walton

Photo (CC BY) Shireen Walton.

Living here, in an inner-city, multi-ethnic neighbourhood in Milan, I am struck by how many people I have come to know who live by themselves. My findings reflect official figures on single-person households, which are increasing exponentially within Europe [1] (a majority being in northern European countries), as well as globally, as witnessed in countries such as Japan, China, and Brazil [2]. In 2016 in the EU, single-person households accounted for almost one third (32.5 %) of private households, with a higher proportion of women (18.4 %) living alone than men (14.1 %) [3]. In Italy, the national average for people living alone is 31%, while in Milan, 52% of households consist of one person [4]. Among a number of explanations for people living alone through choice and/or circumstance are; a number of socio-economic changes over the last 60 years, shifts in work and lifestyle patterns, higher separation and divorce rates, evolving gender roles, and a potent legacy of 1970s Italian Feminism in challenging normative expectations of nuclear family models.

In light of this increasing trend, ethnography can help question some common assumptions about people who live alone – namely, that such people are alone in their lives. In her monograph (2015) on the subject of Italian women above the age of 45 living alone in Milan, Sociologist Graziella Civenti, based on a sociological study of 250 women, found that through a variety of collective ties, practices, and networks, such women establish intricate care and exchange networks that carry out many of the social and economic functions traditionally carried out within and by the nuclear family structure. In so doing, they are able to establish a functional sharing economy that is mutually sustaining and nurturing based on the premise of solidarity, mutual assistance, and attending to common problems [5].

Civenti’s findings resonate with my own unfolding research here in Milan, on ageing and smartphones amongst Italians and migrants, where among my informants who live alone, there is a similarly strong emphasis on the role of networks, of various kinds, on- and offline, in offering care, comfort, and physical/virtual participation in various contexts. To take two brief examples to illustrate:

Claudia (Italian) is 54. She originally moved to Milan from a nearby northern Italian town to study, work and to ‘escape her family and close-knit life’. Claudia lives alone in a palazzo building in a central part of the neighbourhood. She is separated from her husband, and has no children. She works full time at an administrate job in the city. Her Mother (late 70s), who she duly visits every weekend, lives in another northern Italian city. Claudia’s next-door neighbour is a female widow, Clara (84) whose two children live in other cities across Italy, and who she sees infrequently due to their busy lives. What once started out as a co-sharing of responsibility of watering each other’s pot plants on the balcony of the floor in which they live, eventually blossomed into a friendship over the 15 years the women have lived side-by-side. Claudia describes Clara as her ‘go to person’ for many things:

“If one day I was to have a fall, or pass out on the floor, it would be Clara who would notice first. She would notice my absence; my leaving for work in the morning, my coming home at night… family/friends wouldn’t notice for days, even weeks. Clara would go around to check on me. I’ve given here a key of course. I also have hers.”

The relationship between the two women now constitutes a kind Mother-daughter one; one that has been gradually crafted through a mix of neighbourly goodwill, as well as a cross-generational female bond nurtured through mutual care giving and receiving.

For other women in the neighbourhood, such as those living alone away from their home country, the issue takes on different dimensions.

Zaina (35) is from Tanzania. She lives alone with her two-year old daughter in a small apartment obtained through the help of social services. Zaina left her country two years ago in the hope of what she envisaged to be better economic opportunities in Europe. Her husband (also Tanzanian) is currently working in another African country. She is in contact with him, and her Mother back home, via WhatsApp. As an outsider to many of the social and ethnic groups here in Milan (most of the Tanzanian people she knows in Italy are in Naples – she is connected with them via a WhatsApp group), Zaina explained how she can feels lonely sometimes. With a young daughter that she has been told is too young to attend some of the local nurseries, searching for a job proves challenging. However, due to various on– and offline practices, Zaina described how she is ‘never really alone’. Her smartphone, providing she has credit on it, keeps her company. It connects her to family back in Tanzania, and to siblings living in other European countries. From time-to-time, Zaina attends community events at the public school in the park near to her apartment, where she can be around other Mothers, celebrate festivals such as Eid, and connect with the wider community, including attending Italian language classes. Unlike Claudia, for Zaina, it is not the apartment building space that provides the community feeling she finds so comforting, but the exact opposite – it is through her reaching out beyond the confinement of the apartment – to wider spaces in the community, and online to social media – that she feels she and her daughter are present and to varying degrees, cared for, both in Milan and back home in Tanzania.

Photo (CC BY) Shireen Walton

There therefore seems to be a complex sociological relationship between living alone and loneliness that I am exploring through my ethnography. I am beginning to see how in various spaces (social, geographical and digital) of/for care, people who live by themselves co-construct wellbeing through everyday acts, through which they craft themselves into social worlds, on- and offline – from the next-door-neighbour chats, to family/culture-linked WhatsApp groups, and beyond. At a time in history when an increasing number of people are living alone, (digital) anthropological findings that emphasise everyday lives lived can help unpack societal prejudices and assumptions, such as the hyper-individualism of such people, or that living alone infers a person’s loneliness and/or alterity in society. Challenging these ideas may prove difficult in the societies themselves, but nuancing the issue further by taking into account a range of individual lives and practices, can have a number of implications for social policymakers, particularly when it comes to ageing populations such as Italy, with 28% of the population over 60, and 31% living da sola/o.


[1] Eurostat, 2017: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20180706-1?inheritRedirect=true

[2] Civenti, G. (2015). Una Casa Tutta Per Sé. Indagine Sulle Donne Che Vivono Da Sole. FrancoAngeli, Edizioni.

[3] Eurostat, 2016 report: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=People_in_the_EU_-_statistics_on_household_and_family_structures#Single-person_households

[4] Civenti, G. (2015). (Ibid.)

[5] Civenti, G. (2015). (Ibid).

[6] United Nations 2015 World Population Ageing Report

The place of WhatsApp in the ecology of care – by Marilia Duque

LauraHaapio-Kirk26 August 2018

Author: Marilia Duque









Alfonso ManuelOtaegui12 August 2018

Photo (CC BY) J Stimp.








Double feature – by Maya de Vries

ShireenWalton19 July 2018

Author: Maya de Vries

My field site last month was a bit sleepy as it was Ramadan. This holiday continues over a whole month during which Muslims fast throughout the day, break the fast after sunset, and continue eating throughout the night. In Jerusalem, during these days, school and work places usually finish early and people who fast prefer to stay home, especially when Ramadan takes place in the summer and the heat forces people to stay indoors. During Ramadan, the elderly club at Dar al Hawa was closed and there were no activities at all. However, its WhatsApp group, “The group of the elderly club members,” was open 24/7.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, as part of my ethnography, I conduct a participatory observation at the elderly club at Dar al-Hawa Community Center. Recently, they agreed to add me to their WhatsApp group, which was established in October 2015. The admin of the group is also the coordinator of the elderly club. Besides the admin, there are 30 members in the WhatsApp group, although 50 members participate in the weekly meetings and activities at Dar al Hawa. That means that people do not receive information through the WhatsApp group. Instead, the coordinator phones them about the regular activities of the club, such as sport lessons, field trips, and so on. However, some information they miss since they are not part of the WhatsApp group; that is the informal messages, which are usually composed of images of flowers combined with a “good morning” or “good evening” blessing or other quotes from the Qur’an calling to pray to the Prophet Muhammad.

They also do not receive the various videos containing information about bad foods, such as snacks, that cause cancer, a disease that bothers everyone at the club.

When asking their club’s coordinator if she thinks it matters that some members of the group miss such information, she said it is not a big deal. I agree with her that it is not such a big problem, as long as they get the formal information and keep on coming to the club every Sunday and Thursday. However, I do think it can affect to some extent the sociability of the members who do not carry a smartphones and cannot use WhatsApp. Those images of daily greetings have a positive impact, based on my short experience in the WhatsApp group.  Just reading the blessings and seeing the joyful image attached—usually of red and pink flowers—have a positive impact, even if it is just a minor one.

Nevertheless, an image is just an image, and it is fair enough to say that looking at it will not solve major problems of elderly such as loneliness, difficulties in walking, or reaching high shelves at home.

Overcoming such problems is not easy, and one of guest lectures at the elderly club dealt exactly with such issues. The lecturer was a representative from the non-profit organization called Mini Active. This important organization run by women only has a project for elderly people in which an authorized instructor for the golden age meets with elderly people, including the elderly club in Dar al Hawa, and brings all sort of objects for keeping the home environment safe. There was complete silence during almost the entire lecture, indicating that it was an important topic. I sat quietly as well during the lecture and took photos of the various objects.

At the end of the lecture, they all approached the table where the objects were exhibited and asked the instructor many questions. There was a big fuss and noise around the table, and it seems many of them asked if they could buy some of the objects, but they were not for sale. The instructor explained where they could buy them, but not all of them heard her, meaning they missed this important information. Furthermore, it means that probably they will have to go with someone from their family because many of them do not drive or need assistance when leaving the village of Dar al Hawa. I felt an urge to do something for those who did not hear her or would not remember how things look like when they go to buy them. Therefore, I took photos of each object and sent them immediately to their WhatsApp group. While sending it, I knew that there were club members who would not receive these important photos. Furthermore, other important information was missing, such as the locations of the shops and their phone numbers. Therefore, I prepared a file with all the photos of the objects and the names and details of the nearby shops where they can buy them. I sent the file in the WhatsApp group, but more importantly I printed 30 copies and handed it personally to each one of the club’s members who were present in the last meeting.


Why is it important to blog about this? I find this experience significant to the ASSA project that aims to understand how digitation assists seniors. It is a great example of how elderly people experience life today. They are in between the fast pace of smartphones and the digitization of life, but not all the time, and certainly not all them are, as happened at the Dar al Hawa elderly club.

So, let’s imagine a scenario of a person going to buy one of the objects he was told about in the elderly club’s lecture. But, he cannot remember its name and he mistakenly forgot his phone at home so he does not have the image with him.  The information paper handed out at the meeting was left in his bag, folded inside his wallet acting as a safety net, un-digitized. Now he can quietly buy what he needs. Therefore, it seems to me that when thinking of life improvements for older people, it should always be on both tracks, with digital and non-digital features. In a way, it is like a double feature screening, of the same movie from two different copies: analog and digital.

All mistakes allowed: my experience teaching older people how to use WhatsApp – by Marilia Duque

ShireenWalton25 June 2018

Author: Marilia Duque, São Paulo.

Since March this year, I’ve been working as a volunteer in one of the WhatsApp courses provided by a Catholic Parish in my field site in São Paulo. Once a week, I meet around 10 students from 67 to 84 years old who are deeply committed to improving their WhatsApp knowledge and usage. Most of them report that their children don’t have the patience or the time to help them with their smartphones. They understand that their children work hard and have many other commitments in their adult lives. They don’t want to be a burden to their families. So they opt for a regular course[1]. As one of my students Mrs. O. (71) puts it “considering all of that, do you think I would bother them?”

We started our classes as a very heterogeneous group with people who had never used WhatsApp before and people who already pay bills, buy stuff and book flights using their smartphones. After conducting interviews with some of them, I would say the group could be classified in two key categories: the ones who are afraid of  “being overcharged”, “erasing some important information” or “pushing the wrong button” and ruining the device itself and the ones who are disposed to take more risks, using trial and error as method, without any concern about spoiling the device. According to the survey Tech Adoption Climbs Among Older Adults  (Pew Research Center, 2016), lack of confidence is one of the main barriers that can “hinder some old Americans from going online and using new technologies”. One third of seniors feel little or not at all confident when using electronic devices (including smartphones) and because of that feeling three-quarters of them say they need help to set up and start using a new device.

One of my students, Mr. M. (72), said this fear of making mistakes is the key difference between old and young people. If youngsters say something wrong, they laugh at themselves, because they are allowed to make mistakes. However people are not so tolerant with older adults. Because of that, he said, many of his friends feel so embarrassed when they fail that they became too scared to even try. But what could be achieved if all this fear is gone? According to the same Pew Research Center study, once the seniors go online, they engage “at high levels with digital devices and content”. Among older adults who own a smartphone, for example, 76% uses the Internet several times a day or more.

In my WhatsApp course, as the group became more comfortable in making mistakes, I might say they learn more and faster. They now know almost everything about WhatsApp main features: how to create a group, how to share a picture, a video, a contact or a location, how to manage WhatsApp downloads to save data, how to use WhatsApp web. They also learned some tricks a regular WhatsApp user might ignore. For example, each student now has his/her own contact in his/her WhatsApp, so they can send notes (voice and text) to themselves to remind them what to report to a doctor, what to buy at the supermarket and so on. It is great but not enough. They want to go further, so now we just decided to move forward with other apps.

After all, my challenge now is to cater to so many different interests and needs related to smartphones. As my colleague, Alfonso Otaegui, who is also volunteering in smartphone courses in Chile, said in his previous post here, old people have different expectations of smartphone usage. As a teacher, this might help me make more effort to show empathy in class. As an ethnographer, this represents a great opportunity to understand how their particular needs and curiosity about pictures, books, music, travel, languages, cooking and shopping apps reflect the very particular way each of them experience age and how smartphones can help them to get what they want.

[1] If we consider the POnline2017 Survey from Acessa SP, an initiative for digital inclusion in São Paulo that provides free access to internet and many free courses to help users to improve their digital skills, over 70% of respondents learned to use the internet by themselves or attending to courses and just 4% could count on their relatives’ help.

The fruits of ‘olugambo’ – by Charlotte Hawkins

ShireenWalton28 May 2018

Author: Charlotte Hawkins

In many ways, mobile phones have allowed people in Africa to overcome the limits of state bureaucracy (de Bruijn and van Dijk, 2012: 12). To further credit the versatile potential of mobile communication, and the need for it, these limits have recently started closing in on mobile phone use in Uganda with two particularly contentious issues. Firstly, an embargo has been issued on SIM card registration to ensure the validity of existing data following a spate of unresolved kidnappings[1]. Secondly, President Museveni has proposed a tax on social media use in order to address the deficit. WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype, Twitter and Viber are all targets for the proposed daily fee of 100ush for all simcards using such “over the top” platforms[2]. According to the President, social media is used only for ‘olugambo’ or ‘gossip’.  He has exempted internet use for educational purposes, as “[i]t is like going to the library using the encyclopedia or referring to the dictionary. These must remain free”[3].

During fieldwork in the Ugandan context of intrinsic kinship (Whyte & Whyte, 2004: 77) and “scattered families”, I have observed many instances in which social media is used for more than ‘olugambo’, which itself is more than fruitless. As Tanja Ahlin notes in her study of migrant families’ care of elders through ICTs, phone practices are “not only about communication, just as remittances are not only about sending money” (2017). This frames an overarching question for my on-going research in Uganda; what are “over the top” platforms used for other than gossip? Many people have shown me how WhatsApp groups are used to circulate information –

I’m told that even the news of this proposed taxation reached 15,000 people in 10 minutes; “if anything seems to be relevant and effecting the lives of people directly, the messages tend to go very fast”.

WhatsApp groups also appear to be commonly used to share information about health. As one interviewee told me, he is part of a group with friends who are Doctors and teachers, “any information one of them gets, I get it here”. Or another, who recently found out the nutritional content of beetroot and bananas through his WhatsApp group and has started eating more of them. Or the hospital staff, who have a forum on WhatsApp for sharing information about patients and medical supplies, supporting health workers to do their jobs efficiently. As one message about the benefits of lemon peel circulated on WhatsApp recently stated, “thank goodness for Social Media…Pls forward to lots of friends”.

Photo (CC BY) Charlotte Hawkins. Tthis solar panel is used solely to charge the household’s phones, suggesting that access to communication is a priority.

[1] https://www.independent.co.ug/mtn-stops-sale-of-new-sim-cards/, accessed 03.04.18

[2] http://nilepost.co.ug/2018/03/31/tax-facebook-whatsapp-users-museveni-to-minister-of-finance/, accessed 03.04.18

[3] Ibid.


  • Ahlin, T., 2017. Only Near Is Dear? Doing Elderly Care with Everyday ICTs in Indian Transnational Families: Elderly Care with ICTs in Indian Families. Med. Anthropol. Q. https://doi.org/10.1111/maq.12404
  • de Bruijn, M., van Dijk, R., 2012. Introduction, in: de Bruijn, M., van Dijk, R. (Eds.), The Social Life of Connectivity in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
  • Whyte, S.R., Whyte, M.A., 2004. Children’s Children: Time and Relatedness in Eastern Uganda. Afr. J. Int. Afr. Inst. 74, 76–94. https://doi.org/10.2307/3556745