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Book Cover
E-book
Author Arora, Payal, author.

Title The next billion users : digital life beyond the West / Payal Arora
Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2019

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Description 1 online resource (269 pages)
Contents The leisure divide -- Natives at play -- Media bandits -- Virtuous poor -- Slumdog inspiration -- Poverty laboratory -- Privacy, paucity, and profit -- Forbidden love
Summary New-media pundits obsess over online privacy and security, cyberbullying, and revenge porn, but do these things really matter in most of the world? The Next Billion Users reveals that many assumptions about internet use in developing countries are wrong. After immersing herself in factory towns, slums, townships, and favelas, Payal Arora assesses real patterns of internet usage in India, China, South Africa, Brazil, and the Middle East. She finds Himalayan teens growing closer by sharing a single computer with common passwords and profiles. In China's gaming factories, the line between work and leisure disappears. In Riyadh, a group of young women organize a YouTube fashion show. Why do citizens of states with strict surveillance policies appear to care so little about their digital privacy? Why do Brazilians eschew geo-tagging on social media? What drives young Indians to friend "foreign" strangers on Facebook and give "missed calls" to people? The Next Billion Users answers these questions and many more. Through extensive fieldwork, Arora demonstrates that the global poor are far from virtuous utilitarians who mainly go online to study, find jobs, and obtain health information. She reveals habits of use bound to intrigue everyone from casual internet users to developers of global digital platforms to organizations seeking to reach the next billion internet users.-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Internet users -- Developing countries
Internet and the poor -- Developing countries
Internet -- Social aspects -- Developing countries
Computer security -- Developing countries
PSYCHOLOGY -- Social Psychology.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Consumer Behavior
Computer security
Internet and the poor
Internet -- Social aspects
Internet users
Developing countries
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674238879
0674238877
9780674238886
0674238885
9780674238893
0674238893
Other Titles Digital life beyond the West