The recent uptake of mobile phones has been especially remarkable in the developing world.
For the first time in history the poorest of the poor can also take part in the telecommunication
society. Mobile phone use is embedded in existing socio-economic realities which (re)shape
technology as much as technology (re)shapes society. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in an
impoverished community in Cape Town, this paper discusses the ways in which and to what
extent (device) illiteracy influences the use of the mobile phone and vice-versa. By looking at
different cases of mobile phone use of illiterate women, this paper explores the informal
learning practices these women engage in, in an attempt to get as much out of their
technological device as possible. Trying to circumvent the limitations and frustrations their
illiteracy causes, these women have found own ways to appropriate the phone without being
able to actually ‘read’ the device. Driven by their media ideologies and by ideas on what
mobile phones can possibly offer them, the new communication technology instigates literacy
interests and practices that emerge in very informal learning environments. The mobile phone
has become a learning tool, nourishing learning practices and in an unprecedented way urging
women to explore and learn, and to challenge their illiteracy.