We live in a media-saturated society that increasingly transforms our experiences, relations, and identities into data others can analyze and monetize. Algorithms are key to this process, surveilling our most mundane practices, and to many, their control over our lives seems absolute. In Living with Algorithms, Ignacio Siles critically challenges this view by surveying user dynamics in the global south across three algorithmic platforms—Netflix, Spotify, and TikTok—and finds, surprisingly, a more balanced relationship. 

This book analyzes how six countries in Central America―Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama―connected to and through computer networks such as UUCP, BITNET and the Internet from the 80s to the year 2000.

It argues that this story can only be told from a transnational perspective. To connect to computer networks, Central America built a regional integration project with great implications for its development.