Smartphones take over cyberspace from PCs

  AHMEDABAD: "Mujhe teg karna ne, bhai," says Shahbaz Khan via Facebook chat. Khan, who is a car mechanic, dropped out of class VII during the 2002 riots. Make him sit before a laptop and he becomes nervous. Keyboards make him jittery. But give him a touch-screen smartphone and he is in familiar territory. Khan is part of a growing army of people who are not making the normal progression of first accessing the net on a computer and then moving on to smartphones. Their first experience of the net is through smartphones. It is here that they create elaborate personalities of themselves on social networking sites and entertain themselves with games and videos on YouTube. Khan, for instance, loves giving advice on what sort of profile photos one should keep on Facebook, but computer keys are for office-going Smart Alecs. "Come to me, I will take pictures with my phone that look best on FB," he tells you nonchalantly. Via his mobile he surfs the net, downloads "stuff", and also uploads pictures and mails them to friends. "I store pictures and other stuff in my mail and Facebook," he says, digital jargon easily rolling off his tongue. "So, even if my memory card is damaged, I need not worry," says the 21-year-old. Smartphone dealers say they have seen an increase in buyers from lower income groups, thanks to the Chinese invasion of cheap handsets. With internet packs available for as low as Rs 5, more people are logging on to the web on their handsets. According to the 2012 Internet Trends Report released by tech analyst Mary Meeker recently, mobile internet usage surpassed desktop internet in India around May this year. Also, India has emerged as the fifth largest smartphone market globally with 44 million smartphone users and has shown one of the highest year-on-year growth rates in the segment. This growth has given many an opportunity to access a world that they didn't even know existed. "Achha timepass hai," says Suresh Rawal, a peon at the Gujarat University who was introduced to mobile internet by a friend. "I use the handset to download songs and games with my 1.5 GB internet pack. While, I recharge my mobile with Rs 300-400 worth of talk-time a month, for internet, I spend another Rs 65." He had no reason to access the internet until he took to his smartphone. Like Khan, laundryman Ramesh Vasita finds a computer keyboard very cumbersome. But the class X pass-out can't say the same about his phone. "It is a touch-screen mobile; just swipe to unlock and begin chatting with my friends straight away," he says proudly. "I use it for entertainment - to stay in touch with friends, to update Facebook and download stuff." Source: TOI