Brazil's "LAN House Revolution"

Dozens of bikes propped up outside a Brazilian LAN house in Minas Gerais. Image credit Bruno Fernandes

Global Voices' Paula Góes has a fascinating report about the growth of LAN houses in Brazil's poor communities (a LAN, or a Local Area Network, is a small cluster of computers networked to share an Internet connection). Previously the domain of the wealthy, the increase of LAN houses in the favelas has shot up drastically.

There are over 90 thousand lan houses nowadays in Brazil, which account for 50% of the Internet access in the country. Research published in 2008 by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) shows that in Brazil 48% of all users access the Internet from commercial premises like lan houses. When it comes to people from the poorest classes D and E, this number jumps to 79% - a 60% increase from the 48.08% in 2006.

This is also a new wave of "digital inclusion" (a counterpoint to the digital divide). Ronaldo Lemos has a report LAN Houses: A new wave of digital inclusion in Brazil.

Instead of creating isolated teens, these new centers have become social hubs for teens to interact in the physical world. Kids gather to play games together, which researchers are acknowledging is good for social skills. Still other Brazilian researchers hope that LAN Houses will turn Brazil into a "country of readers."

We've reported on the transformative and innovative approaches to the social and educational power of games in the United States in our writings about 3D Squared. See "Digital Workforce Initiative Transforms Gulf Coast Job Prospects," by Rita J. King.

[Global Voices: Brazil: Socio-digital Inclusion through the Lan House Revolution.]