Digital Integration in the 3rd Wave of Mobile HCI: A Key Challenge for Overcoming the Inverted Digital Divide

What does the 3rd wave of mobile computing hold for us, and what are the challenges ahead as we now move from the 1st and 2nd wave to the 3rd wave of mobile HCI? While the 1st wave enabled mobile computing on a basic level – including basic connectivity and the development of mobile devices – and while the 2nd wave was to a large extent about the development of mobile content (from digital services and apps, to services for storing our data in the cloud), the authors suggest that the 3rd wave of mobile computing is less technology-driven, but rather about what mobile computing can enable, and how mobile computing is increasingly a gateway to society at large. In this article, the authors focus specifically on this 3rd wave of mobile computing, and in particular on what they call an inverted digital divide – a state where the mobile technology is in place for its users, but where there is no access to the services in society that rely on mobile computing. In this article, the authors demonstrate this inverted digital divide through a number of examples where they show how this plays out for different groups of people where this is vital in a global world – e.g., visitors to a country such as tourists, immigrants and even people applying for asylum. The authors discuss what is needed in order to bridge this divide and they outline its implications for the further development of mobile services. In concluding this paper, the authors suggest that “digital integration” might serve as a key notion for resolving these issues as we now enter the 3rd wave of mobile HCI.