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<p>Smartphone ownership and mobile connectivity in India have expanded rapidly, alongside increasing reliance on digital platforms for welfare delivery, financial services, and civic participation. Yet among low-income blue-collar workers, everyday smartphone use remains centred on entertainment, communication, and work-mandated tasks, with limited engagement with institutional digital services. This paper presents findings from a qualitative interview study with 18 emergent smartphone users across two Indian states. We examine how smartphones are embedded in everyday practices of work, leisure, and institutional interaction, and why widespread access and familiarity do not translate into sustained engagement with welfare-oriented and administrative platforms. Our analysis shows that personal smartphones are frequently appropriated into workplace regimes of surveillance and compliance, while institutional digital services are experienced as opaque, high-risk, and difficult to act upon. Participants’ avoidance of or reliance on intermediaries reflects risk-sensitive strategies shaped by time poverty, mistrust, and limited recourse, rather than deficits in digital skill. We contribute to CSCW and HCI research by reframing institutional non-engagement as a situated response to socio-technical constraints and by highlighting how information formats and trust structures shape digital participation.</p>

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Smartphones for What? Understanding Everyday Smartphone Use and Institutional Non-Engagement among Emergent Users in India

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月18日

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  • Chaitra C.R.,
  • Prajna Upadhyay,
  • Dipanjan Chakraborty

摘要

Smartphone ownership and mobile connectivity in India have expanded rapidly, alongside increasing reliance on digital platforms for welfare delivery, financial services, and civic participation. Yet among low-income blue-collar workers, everyday smartphone use remains centred on entertainment, communication, and work-mandated tasks, with limited engagement with institutional digital services. This paper presents findings from a qualitative interview study with 18 emergent smartphone users across two Indian states. We examine how smartphones are embedded in everyday practices of work, leisure, and institutional interaction, and why widespread access and familiarity do not translate into sustained engagement with welfare-oriented and administrative platforms. Our analysis shows that personal smartphones are frequently appropriated into workplace regimes of surveillance and compliance, while institutional digital services are experienced as opaque, high-risk, and difficult to act upon. Participants’ avoidance of or reliance on intermediaries reflects risk-sensitive strategies shaped by time poverty, mistrust, and limited recourse, rather than deficits in digital skill. We contribute to CSCW and HCI research by reframing institutional non-engagement as a situated response to socio-technical constraints and by highlighting how information formats and trust structures shape digital participation.