The Interplay between Practices of Youth with Mobile Phone and Digital Capitalism. A Case Study of Kintampo Districts of Ghana

The term ‘youth’ has been defined to mean ‘becomers’. This term connotes youth as vulnerable, innocent, irrational and dependent. Most studies on youth and mobile technologies have focused more on the construction of youth iden-tity with mobile technologies rather than on discourses between youth and the digital capitalism of companies that provide telecommunication services. This research explores how youthful performances with the use of mobile phone in-teract with the practices of telecommunication service providers in shaping each other’s practices in a market driven environment. The research focused on the youth from the ages 12 to 25years owning a mobile phone in central Ghana. The study also examined responses from 3 tel-ecommunication service providers and the National Communications Authority in Ghana. The study adopted both quantitative and ethnographic qualitative ap-proaches. Results from the study reveals that digital capitalism of telecommunication has an influence on youthful performances in terms of financing, ownership, privacy, gender and consumption. Results further showed that the youth are us-ing offers from telecommunication service providers in a way that negotiates benefits from the motives of telecommunication providers. This suggests an in-terplay between youthful practices and telecommunication providers with the use of mobile phone. The findings are very important for further studies into the digital capitalism of telecommunication providers and mobile phone usage for the wellbeing and development of youth.