The Young and the Digital
The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for our Future (Beacon Press 2009) by S. Craig Watkins.
From The Young and the Digital website:
In The Young and the Digital, Watkins skillfully draws from more than five hundred surveys and three hundred and fifty in-depth interviews with young people, parents, and educators to understand how a digital lifestyle is affecting the ways youth learn, play, bond, and communicate. Timely and deeply relevant, the book covers the influence of MySpace and Facebook, the growing appetite for “anytime, anywhere” media and “fast entertainment,” how online “digital gates” reinforce race and class divisions, and how technology is transforming America’s classrooms. Watkins also debunks popular myths surrounding cyberpredators, Internet addiction, and social isolation. The result is a fascinating portrait, both celebratory and wary, about the coming of age of the first fully wired generation.
The companion website for The Young and the Digital features a blog authored by Watkins with posts exploring the themes discussed in the book as well as related current events, research, and media releases.
About the Author S. Craig Watkins teaches in the Radio-Television-Film and Sociology departments and the Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2006, he was selected to join the MacArthur Foundation Series on Youth, Digital Media, and Learning to explore the intersection of digital media, everyday life, and learning. His previous books include Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (Beacon Press 2005), and Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (The University of Chicago Press 1998).
