From The Guardian
Online, some are more equal than others
By John Naughton
A few years ago, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published a bestselling book with the title The World is Flat. In it he used the concept of "flatness" to describe "how more people can plug, play, compete, connect and collaborate with more equal power than ever before – which is what is happening in the world".
Well, up to a point....
A useful antidote might be Jenna Burrell's book, Invisible Users, a study of young African internet users. The professor is an anthropologist who has spent a lot of time in Ghana and her subjects are the urban youth who frequent the internet cafes of Accra....
In her book Burrell offers an acutely observant account of how these kids have adopted, and adapted to their own priorities, a technological system that was not designed with them in mind....