Email is one of the easiest and least expensive methods of communication that is available in the present day. Because of the ease and low cost, it is also accessible to almost anyone with a computer. Computer swindles are now prevalent, with few safeguards present for those that are easy prey. One such scheme involves the request for a sizable sum of money by someone who claims to be in trouble. The trouble can only be resolved by an investment from the e-mail recipient. The sender of the e-mail promises to repay the kindness of the recipient by giving back a much larger sum of money. These emails appear to have originated in Western Africa, usually Ghana or Nigeria. These scams have created a negative perception of how Africa and Africans are viewed as Internet users. This type of perception does not foster a positive idea of a global “village". In fact, the mistrust the fraudulent schemes cause creates a divide between the African nations and those with whom they might like to fairly conduct trade.



Part of propagating the concept of the global village involves commerce, particularly in recent years, the massive amount of consumer goods that are bought and sold via the internet. The United States is marked as the nation that has brought about this mass materialism, and is seen as infecting the rest of the world to bring about a similar way of thinking, a cultural imperialism in which ideas of one culture are spread to another.

It is clear that the world is becoming closer due to the Internet wires that connect it. Given the perception of the global village that is stated in the examples presented, it would seem that this model is not a desirable condition. As a world, the occupants may not be ready to interact as closely as they do without picking up bad habits of others.