Report
This anthropological paper approaches the phenomenon of mobile phone usage from the user level – asking individuals to express what the mobile phone means to them. It focuses on owners of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises, which are of critical importance to the economies of developing nations. Using a small-group quantitative methodology called a Qsort, it examines users’ own experiences with their mobiles. The research treats users not as a block with a single set of needs, but rather as goal-pursuing individuals who interact with the technology in different ways.