“This person has to jump from one block to another, and he shouldn’t fall down. When he jumps from one block to the other – I keep getting points,” says 32-year-old driver Durga Rao, as he shows us the workings of his favourite cell phone game.
I use it to kill my boredom. Every day, if I play for at least 20 minutes, it makes me feel good.
He cannot read the English fonts on his two-and-a-half-inch screen, but the phone keeps him going during the long hours he has to wait, as part of his job.
We can often forget that the devices in our pockets are more akin to the supercomputers of the 1990s than to their telephones. The mobile revolution in India has since put a cell phone in over 1.03 billion hands – out which, 220 million are smart phones, touch-devices that can download and install apps.
Two forms of literacy form an entry barrier to navigating the modern cell phone – the ability to read, and the familiarity with technology that enables one to effectively use it.
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