Seems observing young people and technology has become a recognised field of research and thinking these days. I found this article in the Economist about the net generation coinciding with Don Tapscott’s new book Grown up digital: How the Net Generation is changing your world HC a sequal to his 1997 book Growing up digital: The Net generation. Fascinating stuff which is surprisingly full of very optimistic views on the ambient technologies that children and young people have grown up with.
“As the first global generation ever, the Net Geners are smarter, quicker and more tolerant of diversity than their predecessors,” Mr Tapscott argues. “These empowered young people are beginning to transform every institution of modern life.” They care strongly about justice, and are actively trying to improve society—witness their role in the recent Obama campaign, in which they organised themselves through the internet and mobile phones and campaigned on YouTube. Mr Tapscott’s prescient chapter on “The Net Generation and Democracy: Obama, Social Networks and Citizen Engagement” alone should ensure his book a wide readership.
November 24th, 2008
danah boyd and her colleagues have just completed a 3 year collaborative research project on youth and media. Check it out!.
Social network sites, online games, video-sharing sites, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of youth culture. They have so permeated young lives that it is hard to believe that less than a decade ago these technologies barely existed. Today’s youth may be coming of age and struggling for autonomy and identity as did their predecessors, but they are doing so amid new worlds for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression.
We include here the findings of three years of research on kids’ informal learning with digital media. The two page summary incorporates a short, accessible version of our findings. The White Paper is a 30-page document prepared for the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Series. The book is an online version of our forthcoming book with MIT Press and incorporates the insights from 800 youth and young adults and over 5000 hours of online observations.
November 20th, 2008
The most wonderful aspect of the election of Barak Obama as president of the United States was the impact that youth vote had on the final numbers as this article from MSNBC points out.
Political analysts have long been forecasting a high number of young voters in this presidential election — but there’s always that niggling fear that young people will do what young people are known for: flaking out, slacking off and failing to show up when it counts.
But this time, young people turned out to vote in droves. An estimated 22 to 24 million young people voted in this election, an increase in youth turnout by at least 2.2 million over 2004, according to CIRCLE.
“(The youth vote) is turning states that (Obama) would’ve lost or barely won into more comfortable margins,” says John Della Volpe, the director of polling for the Harvard University Institute of Politics. “Not only are they voting in higher numbers, they’re voting more Democratic.”
If you had had the right to vote in the US, who would you have voted for?
November 9th, 2008
Some fun events organised by onedotzero adventures in motion. They have some open workshops, demos and other cool stuff coming up at the BFI Southbank on November 15th-16th.
There will also be some great work presented at E.magiciens festival in Valenciennes in the north of France on November 26th- 28th.
November 4th, 2008
