This looks like a good book:
In a recent Skype conversation I had with my 85-year-old father, we summoned the conventional play of life: family, health and shopping. We laughed at the slogan on his T-shirt: “I could be wrong. But I doubt it.” Then with much enthusiasm he described a newly downloaded app: Viber. He listed his Viber contacts with the preface: “Everyone is here.” “Everyone” included his son and daughter-in-law, grandchildren and neighbours: reaching citizens in Canada or South Korea was not a priority.
Ethan Zuckerman could have predicted just such a conversation. We could use Google to read the Indonesian national news in Bahasa Indonesia or employ iTunes to download insightful lectures from iTunes U. Instead, we giggle at Grumpy Cat memes. We log into Foursquare to display our location to people who care (or don’t). We check our Facebook status, hoping for a few more “likes” to confirm that we are alive (or at least popular).
Read full review on Times Higher Education.
