Few months back, our COO Helani Galpaya was out in the field in Indonesia, doing qualitative interviews with BOP teleusers. She picked up an odd response pattern: negative answers to questions about Internet use that would lead us to conclude the respondent was not an Internet user but claims that they were using Facebook on the mobile. So it seemed that in their minds, the Internet did not exist; only Facebook. This is the gist of the argument in Wired:
Today, after just eight years in existence, Facebook now has more than 750 million users all by itself. At that astonishing rate of growth, the company is on track to accomplish much more than just a multibillion-dollar IPO. Facebook is on the cusp of becoming a medium unto itself—more akin to television as a whole than a single network, and more like the entire web than just one online destination. The evidence for that transformation goes well beyond the sheer number of users. Many businesses now bypass the traditional web altogether, limiting their online presence to Facebook. Already the platform has spawned one billion-dollar company (the social gaming giant Zynga) and swallowed another (the photo network Instagram). The average time people spend on the site has increased from four and a half hours per month in 2009 to nearly seven hours—more than twice that of any major web competitor.
2 Comments
Lakshaman Bandaranayake
I am not surprised if you find similar responses from youngsters for lower middle class families. They use second hand 3G handsets to watch Youtube videos and visit FB. Given there is limited local language content it is surprising their internet usage is restricted to YT and FB.
Nirmali
That’s quite interesting. This finding is an example of how important it is that survey questions are formulated and structured in such a way to best aids respondents’ understanding of it. E.g. questions about specific uses of services that require Internet connectivity (such as Facebook, etc) may be a more accurate gauge of internet use (although the finding that respondents are not aware of the term “Internet” is useful in itself as well).
The passing of Nirmani Liyanage
We are saddened to hear that Nirmani Liyanage passed away suddenly over the weekend.
සුබසාධන ප්රතිලාභ බෙදාහැරීම සමෘද්ධි බැංකු ඒකාධිකාරයක් නොවිය යුත්තේ ඇයි?
සමෘද්ධි දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ අධ්යක්ෂ ජනරාල්වරයා විසින් 2022 අගෝස්තු 29 වැනි දින නිකුත් කරන ලද චක්රලේඛය අනුව, ජ්යෙෂ්ඨ පුරවැසියන්, ආබාධිත පුද්ගලයන් (PWDs) සහ වකුගඩු රෝගීන් සඳහා මාසික මුදල් ආධාර ලබාදීම් 2022 සැප්තැම්බර් මාසයේ සිට සමෘද්ධි බැංකු හරහා කළ යුතුය. ප්රායෝගිකව මෙම පරිපාලනය ආරම්භ වීමට නියමිත වන්නේ ඔක්තෝබර් මාසයේ සිටයි.
Evaluating Policy Influence with Process Tracing: LIRNEasia inputs for PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION ACT, No. 9 OF 2022
This report is to evaluate the impact of interventions (written comments on the draft bill during the stakeholder consultation) by LIRNEasia on the Personal Data Protection Act, No. 9 of 2022, which was passed by the Parliament of Sri Lanka on 9th of March 2022.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
15 1/2, Balcombe Place, Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2022 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific