Subsequent studies have found that across the continent, even when income inequality, ethnic fractionalisation and geography are taken into account, increases in cell phone coverage are associated with higher levels of violence.13 None of this is to argue that the satellite or the smartphone themselves create violence. Rather, it is the uncritical, unthinking belief in their amoral utility that perpetuates our inability to rethink our dealings with the world. Every unchallenged assertion of the neutral goodness of technology supports and sustains the status quo.
