# Analysing Emergent Users' Text Messages Data and Exploring its Benefits

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.11983 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11983/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 29 Nov 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Between Myths and Metaphors: Rethinking LLMs for SRH in Conservative Contexts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.01907/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While users in the developed world can choose to adopt the technology that suits their needs, the emergent users cannot afford this luxury, hence, they adapt themselves to the technology that is readily available. When technology is designed, such as the mobile-phone technology, it is an implicit assumption that it would be adopted by the emergent users in due course. However, such user groups have different needs, and they follow different usage patterns as compared to users from the developed world. In this work, we target an emergent user base, i.e., users from a university in Pakistan, and analyse their texting behaviour on mobile phones. We see interesting results such as, the long-term linguistic adaptation of users in the absence of reasonable Urdu keyboards, the overt preference for communicating in Roman Urdu and the social forces related to textual interaction. We also present two case studies on how a single dataset can effectively help understand emergent users, improve usability of some tasks, and also help users perform previously difficult tasks with ease.