3 research outputs found
After Access – Challenges Facing Mobile-Only Internet Users in the Developing World
This study reports results of an ethnographic action research study, exploring mobile-centric internet use. Over the course of 13 weeks, eight women, each a member of a livelihoods collective in urban Cape Town, South Africa, received training to make use of the data (internet) features on the phones they already owned. None of the women had previous exposure to PCs or the internet. Activities focused on social networking, entertainment, information search, and, in particular, job searches. Results of the exercise reveal both the promise of, and barriers to, mobile internet use by a potentially large community of first-time, mobile- centric users. Discussion focuses on the importance of self- expression and identity management in the refinement of online and offline presences, and considers these forces relative to issues of gender and socioeconomic status
Crafting, Communality, and Computing: Building on Existing Strengths To Support a Vulnerable Population
In Nepal, sex-trafficking survivors and the organizations that support them
have limited resources to assist the survivors in their on-going journey
towards reintegration. We take an asset-based approach wherein we identify and
build on the strengths possessed by such groups. In this work, we present
reflections from introducing a voice-annotated web application to a group of
survivors. The web application tapped into and built upon two elements of
pre-existing strengths possessed by the survivors -- the social bond between
them and knowledge of crafting as taught to them by the organization. Our
findings provide insight into the array of factors influencing how the
survivors act in relation to one another as they created novel use practices
and adapted the technology. Experience with the application seemed to open
knowledge of computing as a potential source of strength. Finally, we
articulate three design desiderata that could help promote communal spaces:
make activity perceptible to the group, create appropriable steps, and build in
fun choices.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'20
Quality and Inequity in Digital Security Education
Few users have a formal, authoritative introduction to digital security. Rather, digital security skills are often learned haphazardly, as users filter through an overwhelming quantity of security education from a multitude of sources, hoping they're implementing the right set of behaviors that will keep them safe. In this thesis, I use computational, interview, and survey methods to investigate how users learn digital security behaviors, how security education impacts security outcomes, and how inequity in security education can create a digital divide. As a first step toward remedying this divide, I conduct a large-scale measurement of the quality of the digital security education content (i.e., security advice) that is available to users through one of their most cited sources of education: the Internet. The results of this evaluation suggest a security education ecosystem in crisis: security experts are unable or unwilling to narrow down which behaviors are most important for users' security, leaving end-users -- especially those with the least resources -- to attempt to implement the hundreds of security behaviors advised by educational materials