Big change on a tiny screen

It is the one device that makes possible the notion of the global village. Perhaps the only thing that the poor fishermen on the Kerala coast and the rich stock analyst in the New York Stock Exchange have in common is the cell phone.

What accounts for the unreasonable success of the cell phone is that it reduces the cost of disseminating and accessing information instantly. The mobile phone is what I call “a general-purpose personal information communications device”. The “personal” refers to the information, rather than to the ownership of the device because what information is depends on the recipient.

One can distinguish between two broad categories of information: pure and actionable. Actionable information is something that enables a decision to be made and action is prompted as a result, as in the case of the protesters. Pure information is something that does not result in an immediate response or action. Pure information is “good to know” as opposed to actionable information which is “need to know.” One may call pure information a luxury good, while actionable information a basic good.

Since the rich typically spend a greater percentage on luxury goods, and the poor a greater percentage on basic goods, it is obvious that the poor will spend relatively more on actionable information as opposed to pure information.

Examples of pure and actionable information are not independent of a person, naturally, given that information is personal. The price of fish at a particular market along the Kerala coast is actionable information to a fisherman out at sea because it affects his decision where to land his catch. The busy stock analyst catching up with the latest political news while commuting to work is consuming pure information, and he is willing to pay for it even though he will not take any immediate action on it. But getting news on his cell phone is a luxury that the fisherman would not be willing to pay for.

... contd.