Real Girls, Real Lives, Connected: A Global Study of Girls' Access and Usage of Mobile, Told Through 3000 Voices

"If this gendered access gap is to be effectively addressed it needs to be understood. In particular, little is known about mobile access for adolescent girls. "

This study, a partnership between Girl Effect and Vodafone Foundation, surveyed over 3,000 girls and boys in twenty-five countries in order to give a voice to the girls accessing - or trying to access - mobile phones. Research methodology developed in collaboration with MIT D-Lab included:

• An initial literature review on girls’ access and usage of mobile.
• In-person interviews with girls and boys who had access to mobiles, led by Girl Effect’s Tech-Enabled Girl Ambassadors (TEGAs) - girls aged 18-24 employed and trained "using bespoke smartphones to become Market Research Society qualified researchers."
• "Key informant interviews with international development, technology and gender experts...." on how girls access and use mobile phones, including barriers, challenges, and drivers of success.
• Online engagement through a survey across 21 countries and "comment analysis of online discussions driven by a series of vignettes."

 
Key findings include the following:

• "Girls' access to mobile phones is complex. Access is often compromised, transient, and strongly influenced by local gender norms. This prompts a rethink of the binary distinction between 'no access to mobile' and 'access to mobile' that often drives programme development."
• "Boys are 1.5 times more likely to own a phone and 1.8 times more likely to own a smartphone." *Because boys have more access and more access to internet enabled phones, thus many have the ability to obtain a bank loan, transfer money in banking, pay an electricity bill, book a railway ticket, air ticket and whatever work through mobile phones. Girls have less access, especially to internet connected phones and therefore more limited knowledge of possibilities. If they must use 'secret phones', they are unlikely to have social networks that can expand their knowledge of internet phone usage.
• "Affordability can be a major barrier for girls and boys."
• Barriers for girls include social barriers, for example perceived danger of phone access for girls, including social media exposure. "[G]irls who experience a range of social restrictions appear more likely to internalise ideas that phones can be unsafe and girls can not be trusted with the phone."
• Stress, harassment and bullying, and safety concerns can be negative consequences of phone use.
• Girls in environments allowing them more freedom and agency tend to have greater phone access and perceive a wider range of benefits of the phone as a gateway. Those with less freedom and agency tend to see phones as a communication connector to family and peers and see the gateway as having more negative connotations. "Perceptions of safety and risk are key to how girls engage with the phone and the access their parents allow them."
• In places where transactional relationships are common, access to a phone can be a result of transactions with more affluent men and boys.

The 'where do we go from here section' suggests that phones, apps, and digital platforms are not currently designed for the ways in which girls use them - which includes shared use and borrowing. Strategic ways to support girls' phone access and use are:

1. Pay attention to the changing complexities of phone access; 
2. Look holistically at the gender gap, tackling multiple barriers for girls simultaneously;
3. Use mobile technology to support existing programming for adolescent girls in health, education, economic empowerment;
4. Support integrating tech literacy and digital safety into school lessons for all students, as well as encouraging broader acceptance of mobiles in families and communities;
5. Design for online safety;
6. For greater girl phone access, involve potential gatekeepers, including men and boys;
7. Design mobile platforms from the users' - girls' - perspective;
8. Consider audience diversity in design - "SMS and other less-advanced solutions may be better for some situations, whereas capitalising on social media or online sites may be more useful in other circumstances...." ; and
9. "Support girls to expand their own digital horizons, as the possibilities for co-creation are infinite...."