The Digital Edge. S. Craig Watkins

set of creative and improvisational practices that some Freeway students employed to gain access to the devices, media content, and peer connections that make mobile the central artery of teen social life. We refer to this as the making of an informal sharing economy.

      The Mobile Paradox

      The relationship between social inequality and media adoption is increasingly complex. Lower-income and lower-education households remain somewhat less likely than their higher-income and higher-education counterparts to use the Internet, though that particular gap closed considerably throughout the first decade of the new millennium. However, when you factor in mobile, use of the Internet across categories like household income and education changes as those who are in the lower socioeconomic group are just as likely as, and in some cases more likely than, higher socioeconomic groups to use a mobile phone as the primary gateway to the Internet. We witnessed this trend consistently throughout our fieldwork, which was confirmed by data from the Pew Research Center.

      More specifically, Pew measured what it called Internet access “mostly on cell phones.” African American teens (33 percent) were more likely than white (24 percent) or Latino teens (21 percent) to report that they access the Internet mostly on a cell phone.11 Teens from lower-income households (30 percent) were also more likely than teens from higher-income households (24 percent) to report Internet access mostly on a cell phone.12 The key takeaway here is not that teens from higher-income households were not going online from a mobile phone, but rather that they benefit from a wider set of options when they go online from home, especially in the form of high-capacity network connections.

      Americans’ use of the Internet via a mobile device began rising sharply after 2007. Roughly one-fifth (24 percent) of Americans used the Internet on a mobile device in 2007.13 By 2009, nearly a third (33 percent) had done so. Between the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2009, handheld Internet use for the general population on an average day grew by 73 percent.14 Among African Americans, use of the mobile Internet during this same period was even more pronounced. Handheld Internet use for African Americans grew at twice the rate of the general population, or 141 percent.15 By 2009 almost half (48 percent) of blacks had used a mobile device at one time to access the Internet.

      Higher usage of the mobile Internet notwithstanding, black and Latino teens continue to face significant challenges regarding their engagement with Internet-based media. During our fieldwork, white teens (81 percent) and Latino teens (79 percent) were much more likely than black teens (64 percent) to own a laptop or desktop computer.16 In our cases the teens that did have home access to a computer typically shared it with other family members. And while studies dating back to the middle and late 1990s have suggested that the presence of a computer in the house corresponds with the presence of a child in that house, sharing a computer can often limit the amount of time young people spend on a home computer, the range of activities they engage in, and, consequently, the kinds of networks, skills, and knowledge that they develop.

      Moreover, several students in our cases reported that the computers in their homes often lacked the upgrades, software, or functional capacity to pursue the kinds of online experiences that were of interest to them. Needless to say, a computer that cannot connect to the Internet, stream music or videos, offer game play, or communicate with peers via social media is of little use to most teens. Circumstances like these—sharing a household computer or limited computer functionality—contribute greatly to the increasing use of mobile phones and the mobile Internet in lower-income households.

      Meanwhile, as the use of mobile was rising for blacks and Latinos, their access to home broadband Internet lagged behind that of white and Asian households. The uneven distribution of home broadband Internet service is especially noteworthy. In the United States, home broadband Internet adoption continues to be strongly associated with a mix of indicators including income, education, race and ethnicity, geography, and whether a child is in the home.17 Historically, households with broadband Internet tend to be white or Asian, higher income, and higher educated.

      The devices that we use to access the Internet are just as important as whether we access the Internet. During the period of our fieldwork, African Americans were less likely than whites to access the Internet on a desktop or laptop computer, but they were 70 percent more likely than whites to access the Internet on a handheld device.18 The data from this period strongly suggest that two different pathways to the Internet were emerging for black and white Americans. The Pew Research Center adds that “to an extent notably greater than that for whites, wireless access for African Americans serves as a substitute for a missing onramp to the Internet—the home broadband connection.”19 Pew also concluded that English-speaking Latinos were the heaviest users of wireless on-ramps to the Internet.20 What are the social implications of these trends?

      Not surprisingly, analysts have viewed the adoption of the mobile web by African Americans and Latinos in two competing ways: as a sign of progress or as a sign of continuing deficits. However, the story is a bit more complex. It turns out that what was really happening was the emergence of adaptive, even innovative behaviors—namely early adoption of the mobile Internet. As early as the mid-2000s, futurists were predicting that mobile was the future of the connected and computing worlds. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad in 2009 to an eager Apple audience, he repeatedly noted that “it was like holding the Internet in your hands.” It turns out that in the United States, a population of unlikely early adopters, blacks and Latinos, were already holding the Internet in their hands. The key question, of course, is, what kind of Internet were they holding? Going online via a mobile platform emerged as the norm among populations that historically have not been associated with the class of early technology adopters.

      These different pathways to the online world also structure different opportunities to participate in the online world. Predictably, homes with access to broadband Internet accrue several advantages compared with homes without broadband. Households with broadband, for instance, are much more likely than those without to use the Internet for a wider array of activities—social, educational, political, and recreational. Youth with home access to broadband have more opportunities than youth without to build rich interest-driven learning ecologies that promote digital exploration, experimentation, and content creation. It is not that youth without home broadband access are unable to build interest-driven learning ecologies, but rather that they must be especially resourceful to do so. Throughout this book we explore how Freeway students designed a number of creative and flexible solutions to ensure greater access to and participation in digital media culture.

      The mobile lives of black and Latino youth raise a number of interesting questions regarding the ever-shifting currents of the digital divide and represent, more generally, what we call a mobile paradox. On the one hand, the adoption of mobile phones and the mobile Internet among African Americans and Latinos suggests that they are early adopters and mobile trendsetters in the United States. On the other hand, the conditions that shape black and Latino teens’ mobile practices suggest that they continue to grapple with the social and economic challenges associated with life in the digital edge.

      Even as black and Latino youth are early adopters of mobile, they are less likely than white or Asian youth to grow up in households with access to broadband Internet and the associated benefits. Home broadband expands the opportunities for young people to develop the social networks and technical competence that are associated with more robust forms of digital media practice, production, and participatory cultures. Put another way, the opportunities to cultivate more dynamic forms of digital literacy and social capital are severely limited when young people must rely on broadband Internet access through school, a public library, or someone else’s house.21

      The mobile path to the online world for Latino and black