“I don’t even think they have internet [in Africa]”
“Maybe the phones over there are nothing more than a cardboard homescreen”
“They can’t even build many houses, let alone an internet transmitter mast”
“There probably isn’t any wifi”
“Maybe they don’t even have a phone”
The answers these children gave when they were asked about how they would imagine what the internet in ‘Africa’ would be like, say a lot about how Dutch people (and their kids) perceive the African continent.
Luckily, there are TV shows like VPRO's ‘De Dikke Data Show’ (about big fat data and the worldwide web). They asked me to tell something about how people in Kenya use internet.
And so I interviewed Nairobi-based Nahla, who follows online classes on her laptop (but also uses it to watch Minecraft videos), and Douglas, who lives near Oloitoktok with his cattle and reads the news and chats using his smartphone.
The video above is just a small snippet - to watch the whole episode of De Dikke Data Show (and also see how the internet is different in China), click or tap here.
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