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

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Abstract

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.

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Data Availability

No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Notes

  1. Bharat is the Hindi name for the country India

  2. PM-KISAN is a government scheme offering financial support to small and marginal farmers across India. Kisan translates to Farmer from Hindi. PM expands to Prime Minister

  3. SYM expands to Shram Yogi Maandhan Yojana. It is a voluntary and contributory pension scheme launched by the Government of India to provide social security to unorganised workers.

  4. The NDLM wants to make sure that at least one person from every family is technically literate. The program aims at the eradication of the digital divide, especially among rural and disadvantaged groups.

  5. It is a government initiative aimed at promoting digital literacy across India.

  6. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a real-time, 24/7 instant payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in 2016. It enables immediate, secure, inter-bank peer-to-peer (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions via mobile devices using a single UPI ID or QR code, bypassing the need to enter sensitive bank details for every transaction.

  7. https://www.taguette.org/

  8. CCTV camera

  9. YONO expands to You Only Need One. It is a digital banking platform offered by the State Bank of India (SBI), a nationalised bank in India

  10. ride hailing platform

  11. ride hailing platform

  12. Aadhaar is India’s national digital identity system, providing residents with a 12-digit unique identifier based on biometric and demographic data, and used for identity verification in public and private services.

  13. Google Pay (often referred to as GPay) is a secure, digital payment app developed by Google for fast online payments, in-store contactless transactions, and peer-to-peer money transfers.

  14. A secure digital payment app developed by Google that enables users to make instant bank-to-bank transfers, contactless payments, and bill payments using UPI.

  15. An Indian digital payments platform based on UPI that facilitates direct bank transfers and utility payments

  16. It is a Digital Wallet and Online Payment App that allows you to make instant Money Transfers with UPI.

  17. PayTM is an RBI-approved, secure digital wallet payment solution that lets users carry out mobile payments. It is similar to PhonePe.

  18. Provident Fund, a social security scheme in India

  19. Narendra Modi - Prime Minister of India

  20. Financial inclusion scheme with zero balance bank accounts

  21. Cyber cafes, which act as points of enrollment

  22. Scheme for financial assistance for housing.

  23. Nutritional and medicinal supplements supplied to pregnant women and newborns. Eligibility is based on state-domicile

  24. A health insurance card in Andhra Pradesh.

  25. Indian Contact Tracing mobile app launched during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Hyderabad Campus, Jawahar Nagar, Kapra Mandal, Medchal District, Hyderabad, 500078, Telangana, India

    Chaitra C.R., Prajna Upadhyay & Dipanjan Chakraborty

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  1. Chaitra C.R.
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  2. Prajna Upadhyay
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Contributions

CCR conducted the interviews and performed the analysis. PU and DC contributed to the study design, helped develop the interview questionnaire, provided guidance, and assisted in consolidating the resulting themes to ensure accuracy and comprehensiveness. CCR drafted the manuscript, and PU and DC critically reviewed and revised the manuscript for intellectual content. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript and take responsibility for its content.

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Correspondence to Chaitra C.R..

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Appendices

Appendix A   Interview Guide

  1. 1.

    Documenting the practices of smartphone usage by migrant workers

    1. (a)

      Do you use a phone? What kind of phone do you use?

    2. (b)

      For how long have you been using the phone?

    3. (c)

      How would you use your phone? What phone features do you use most (Call, SMS and IVRS)?

    4. (d)

      If smartphone users, how did they set up the phone? Probe them further upon mentioning any application, including phone(dialling, receiving and saving contacts), SMS, and setting up of the phone.

    5. (e)

      Ask them about social networking apps like WhatsApp, ShareChat chat and Telegram.

    6. (f)

      How do you save contact?

    7. (g)

      Can you install any applications from the Play Store?

    8. (h)

      In WhatsApp, do they send forwards, and do they compose messages?

    9. (i)

      Do they use a voice type feature?

    10. (j)

      How do they come to know about apps?

    11. (k)

      Whom do they seek help from if they encounter any problem with phones?

    12. (l)

      Do you use any banking applications? UPI and banking applications like HDFC, ICICI, etc.?

    13. (m)

      Why do they use banking apps? Do they know how to transfer money, check their balance or just GPay, PhonePe (UPI) a. If they are not using a banking app, why are they not using it? What is the problem with using such apps, as it saves time?

    14. (n)

      What is their view on voice input? a. Have you tried the voice typing feature? How did you like it? Is there any difficulty in using that feature? Did you enjoy giving commands in English/the local language?

    15. (o)

      What are the advantages/disadvantages of this feature?

    16. (p)

      How did you first find out about COVID? How did you access information and understand it? Probe – friends, family or co-workers, neighbours, government, word of mouth, radio Did you or others use your/their phone(s) to help? Tell me about it – calling people, social media, Internet, apps items. Did you have issues accessing information via phone? In what way? Probing: knowing where to look, cost of data, literacy, misinformation. How did you overcome this problem?

    17. (q)

      Did you use or discover particularly good or bad websites or applications? Tell me about what was good or bad. What would have made it easier for you to access information or seek help by phone? Or what would you do differently if you created an app?

    18. (r)

      How has the use of phones has changed pre-pandemic and post-pandemic?

  2. 2.

    What are the challenges for migrant workers in accessing information through phones and other digital tools?

    1. (a)

      What government schemes do you know of? If they cannot name them, try to understand why they don’t know about such schemes.

    2. (b)

      How do you get to know about the schemes?

    3. (c)

      Have you applied for it before? Was it easy to apply for the schemes? What are the pain points of applying to schemes? How do you think it can be solved?

    4. (d)

      Have you ever looked for information on gov schemes online? Are you aware of any app that provides such information?

    5. (e)

      Has it been easy/ difficult to access information online? What difficulty do you find in accessing information online? Language/content/too detailed/incorrect information/ too detailed

    6. (f)

      There are digital programmes called NDLM (National Digital Literacy Mission) and DISHA (Digital India Saksharathat Abhiyaan), which teach people how to use a smartphone to uplift people with low incomes. Are you willing to enrol on the programmes? If not, why are you not enrolling? What is the problem with registering for such programmes?

    7. (g)

      Suppose you know there is a beneficial scheme; how do you collect information about the scheme and go about it? (From the beginning till they apply, what are the steps involved and the difficulties they face at every step).

    8. (h)

      Same can be asked about jobs as well. Why are they not using phones to find information about jobs and schemes?

  3. 3.

    What representation of information would make it usable for the migrant worker population?

    1. (a)

      On a scale of 1-5, how important is it for you to have the following information in the app? Job, Government schemes, etc. Apart from jobs and government schemes, what other information would you like to have?

    2. (b)

      How beneficial for you to have one app where you can search for all information on jobs, government programmes, and schemes for migrant workers? Rate 1 - 5

    3. (c)

      Do you like to have this information in Hindi or your native language?

    4. (d)

      Do you prefer video/audio content for the information? (Information in text, audio or video)

    5. (e)

      Do you prefer a separate application or integration with WhatsApp or any communicative app?

    6. (f)

      If information comes from the government on the web, will you trust it?

Appendix B   Code Book

Table 2 Code Book: Lists all the code obtained by qualitative analysis of interview data. The count of the code or theme was derived by aggregating the individual code counts
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C.R., C., Upadhyay, P. & Chakraborty, D. Smartphones for What? Understanding Everyday Smartphone Use and Institutional Non-Engagement among Emergent Users in India. Comput Supported Coop Work 35, 13 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-026-09546-4

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