This article looks at the unfolding smartphone app adoption culture in Yangon, Myanmar with insights from 18 informant interviews, 3 informal interviews, and nonparticipant observation. Through the domestication framework and actor-network theory, findings showed a unique overlay of actors influencing acquisition and adoption of apps, including: dependent users, “warm-gatekeepers,” mobile phone shops, and Facebook. Mediators such as Android skins, language skills, and other factors (mobile data pricing and network infrastructure) impact the relationships between these actors. Together, the impact of mediators on actor relationships highlighted a filtered means many users adopted to acquire new apps, a “two-step access” model of acquisition. This article traces how users acquire apps given this network of actors, following their journey and how they overcome challenges and limitations in their social and technological landscape.
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