For many of us, a smartphone is an extension of daily life. We carry it everywhere and rely on it for communication, work, banking, information, and access to services. When it breaks, we usually repair or replace it quickly, because being without one disrupts so much of our lives.

Because this relationship with technology feels ordinary, it can become the unspoken model around which digital inclusion programs are designed. We assume that people everywhere place a similar priority on phones, that ownership leads to regular use, and that connectivity naturally results in engagement. These assumptions may reflect our own circumstances, but they become problematic when we treat them as universal.

Our recent research with Quicksand examined digital agency among 93 women who had participated in Trickle Up India’s MPowered program in Odisha and Jharkhand. Rather than focusing solely on ownership, the study explored how women gained access, learned new skills, experienced interruptions, and sometimes stopped using phones altogether.

The findings show that phone use among women living in extreme poverty is shaped by much more than ownership or connectivity. Household finances, caregiving and livelihood responsibilities, control over resources, opportunities to practice, and social expectations all influence whether and how a woman can use a phone.

Valuing a Phone Does Not Mean Being Able to Prioritize It

Digital inclusion discussions often assume that people who value a phone will prioritize keeping it operational. For households living in extreme poverty, however, repairing or replacing a device may compete with food, healthcare, school expenses, debt repayment, agricultural inputs, or livelihood investments. Mobile data also creates a recurring expense, and when money is unavailable for a data recharge, phone use may stop.

The research found that broken phones sometimes remained unused for months or years, but this was not because women failed to appreciate their value. Many described feeling strongly attached to their phones and taking care to protect them, yet households could not always justify the cost of repair. Interrupted use should therefore not automatically be interpreted as a lack of interest. A woman may value her phone greatly while still prioritizing more urgent household needs.

Ownership Tells Us Less Than We Think

Phone ownership is a common measure of digital inclusion, but the presence of a smartphone in a household does not tell us who carries it, who decides how it is used, or whose needs take priority. In many households included in the research, one phone was shared among several family members. Husbands might take it to work, while children used it for school or entertainment. Women often gained access only after others had finished using it or had to ask before borrowing it.

Some participants also shared phones through rotation systems. This extended access to more women, but it did not create the same learning conditions as holding a device consistently. When several days passed between opportunities to use the phone, women sometimes forgot what they had learned. Since learning depends on regular practice and experimentation, programs need to consider the continuity and quality of access rather than treating ownership as a simple yes-or-no category.

Connectivity Does Not Automatically Create Engagement

Expanding network coverage and reducing data costs remain essential, but connectivity alone does not determine whether a woman can engage meaningfully with technology. She also needs time, confidence, relevant content, and an environment in which her use is accepted.

The women in the study were balancing household labor, childcare, farming, livestock care, wage work, and other responsibilities. Phone use was often slotted into the limited time available after these tasks were completed, particularly in the evening. Technical and social constraints could also reinforce one another. Where reception was weak indoors, women sometimes had to step outside to make a call, yet using a phone in public could invite criticism from neighbors.

Digital Inclusion Is Not Always a Linear Journey

Digital inclusion is often understood as a steady progression from access to skills and then to greater use, but the research shows that progress can be reversed. The most common pattern identified in the study involved women whose conditions for phone use had once come together but had later fallen apart. A device might have been broken, lost, or shifted to another household member, and without regular access, skills weakened.

This finding challenges the evaluations that measure progress only during implementation or immediately after a phone has been distributed. Sustained digital inclusion depends on whether the conditions supporting use remain stable over time, including affordable repair and recharge, continued opportunities for practice, and support within households and communities.

The report proposes understanding digital agency through three interconnected areas: material conditions, individual capability, and social and normative conditions. These cannot be addressed effectively in isolation. Skills training has limited value when a woman rarely holds the phone, while providing a device may not lead to autonomous use when someone else controls it.

Digital inclusion efforts will be more effective when they stop measuring only whether a device or connection exists and begin examining whether women can use the technology consistently, confidently, and on their own terms. That requires us to move beyond designing for an imagined universal user and begin with the real contexts in which people actually live.

————–