By Robert Lalah, Staff Reporter 
Professor Danny Miller of the University College of London at a workshop on the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies, yesterday. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
THESE DAYS it seems almost everyone has a cellphone. From the young to the old, the rich to the indigent. These phones are used for different purposes, and at a Poverty, Ethnography and Communication Workshop held yesterday at the University of the West Indies (UWI), a group of anthropologists from the United Kingdom, revealed details of extensive research conducted on the use of cellphones in Jamaica.
The research focused primarily on the impact of cellphones and the Internet on two low-income communities; a rural area in Clarendon with very little formal employment and a settlement within Portmore, St. Catherine.
Professor Danny Miller of the University College of London, who led the research, shared the finer points of the research at the workshop.
Professor Miller said one point of focus of the research was to take a number of sectors and determine the impact the cellphone has on each.
In the field of education, the study determined that the cellphone provided no significant assistance to students. "If anything, it is only a distraction," said the professor.
SENSE OF SAFETY
The study did, however, find that the cellphone was very important to people's sense of safety and well-being. Professor Miller said the phones give people the comfort of knowing they can contact the police, wherever they may be. He said Jamaicans place great value also in knowing they can contact their loved ones, particularly their children, whenever they wish.
Another revelation of the study was that the cellphone was integral to poverty-stricken persons who depend primarily on the assistance of others for survival. The cellphone also makes it more convenient for persons to contact relatives and friends abroad for remittances.
Professor Barry Chevannes, retired dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at UWI, praised the work of the English anthropologists.
"I am intrigued by the work and findings of the research and must congratulate the hardworking researchers," he said. "At first when I heard that a study was being done on the use of cellphones, I was taken aback, but the work is truly intriguing."
