[Air-L] Report by the Digital Youth Project released

[danah boyd]

We are happy to announce the online release of the findings from our  
three-year Digital Youth project (http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu 
). All of the researchers who have worked on this project will be  
writing up individual publications, but this report represents a  
synthesis of the findings across the 22 different case studies. It has  
been over three years in the making, and is the result of a truly  
collaborative effort with 28 researchers and research collaborators.

This project is part of the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and  
Learning initiative.
http://digitallearning.macfound.org.

You can find all the details in the documents linked below, and a  
summary of our report below.

Two-page summary of report:
http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-TwoPageSummary.pdf

White paper: http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf

Full report: http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report

Press release and video: http://digitallearning.macfound.org/ethnography

New York Times coverage: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/us/20internet.html

We will be celebrating the release of our report at a reception at the  
American Anthropological Association meetings in San Francisco. Please  
join us on Saturday November 22, at 6:30-8:00pm, San Francisco Hilton  
& Towers, Golden Gate Ballroom.

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RESEARCH SUMMARY

Over three years, Mizuko Ito and her 28-person research team  
interviewed over 800 youth and young adults and conducted over 5000  
hours of online observations as part of the most extensive U.S. study  
of youth media use to date.

They found that social network sites, online games, video-sharing  
sites, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of  
youth culture.  The research finds today's youth may be coming of age  
and struggling for autonomy and identity amid new worlds for  
communication, friendship, play, and self-expression.

Many adults worry that children are wasting time online, texting, or  
playing video games.  The researchers explain why youth find these  
activities compelling and important.  The digital world is creating  
new opportunities for youth to grapple with social norms, explore  
interests, develop technical skills, and experiment with new forms of  
self-expression.
These activities have captured teens' attention because they provide  
avenues for extending social worlds, self-directed learning, and  
independence.

MAJOR FINDINGS

- Youth use online media to extend friendships and interests. -

Most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they  
navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religious organizations,  
sports, and other local activities. They can be always "on," in  
constant contact with their friends through private communications  
like instant messaging or mobile phones, as well as in public ways  
through social network sitessuch as MySpace and Facebook.  With these  
"friendship-driven" practices, youth are almost always associating  
with people they already know in their offline lives. The majority of  
youth use new media to "hang out" and extend existing friendships in  
these ways.

A smaller number of youth also use the online world to explore  
interests and find information that goes beyond what they have access  
to at school or in their local community. Online groups enable youth  
to connect to peers who share specialized and niche interests of  
various kinds, whether that is online gaming, creative writing, video  
editing, or other artistic endeavors. In these interest-driven  
networks, youth may find new peers outside the boundaries of their  
local community. They can also find opportunities to publicize and  
distribute their work to online audiences, and to gain new forms of  
visibility and reputation.


- Youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online. -

In both friendship-driven and interest-driven online activity, youth  
create and navigate new forms of expression and rules for social  
behavior. By exploring new interests, tinkering, and "messing around"  
with new forms of media, they acquire various forms of technical and  
media literacy. Through trial and error, youth add new media skills to  
their repertoire, such as how to create a video or game, or customize  
their MySpace page. Teens then share their creations and receive  
feedback from others online. By its immediacy and breadth of  
information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed  
learning.

Some youth "geek out" and dive into a topic or talent. Contrary to  
popular images, geeking out is highly social and engaged, although  
usually not driven primarily by local friendships. Youth turn instead  
to specialized knowledge groups of both teens and adults from around  
the country or world, with the goal of improving their craft and  
gaining reputation among expert peers. While adults participate, they  
are not automatically the resident experts by virtue of their age.  
Geeking out in many respects erases the traditional markers of status  
and authority.

New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is  
less apparent in a classroom setting. Youth respect one another's  
authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from  
peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed,  
and the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom  
learning that is oriented by set, predefined goals.

IMPLICATIONS

New media forms have altered how youth socialize and learn, and raise  
a new set of issues that educators, parents, and policymakers should  
consider.

-Adults should facilitate young people's engagement with digital  
media. Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth  
are picking up basic social and technical skills they need to fully  
participate in contemporary society.  Erecting barriers to  
participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning.   
Participation in the digital age means more than being able to access  
serious online information and culture. Youth could benefit from  
educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social  
exploration that are generally not characteristic of educational  
institutions.

Because of the diversity of digital media, it is problematic to  
develop a standardized set of benchmarks against which to measure  
young people's technical and new media literacy. Friendship-driven and  
interest-driven online participation have very different kinds of  
social connotations.  For example, whereas friendship-driven  
activities centers upon peer culture, adult participation is more  
welcomed in the latter more "geeky" forms of learning.  In addition,  
the content, behavior, and skills that youth value are highly variable  
depending on what kinds of social groups they associate with.

In interest-driven participation, adults have an important role to  
play. Youth using new media often learn from their peers, not teachers  
or adults. Yet adults can still have tremendous influence in setting  
learning goals, particularly on the interest-driven side where adult  
hobbyists function as role models and more experienced peers.

To stay relevant in the 21st century, education institutions need to  
keep pace with the rapid changes introduced by digital media. Youths'  
participation in this networked world suggests new ways of thinking  
about the role of education. What, the authors ask, would it mean to  
really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available  
through online resources and networks? What would it mean to reach  
beyond traditional education and civic institutions and enlist the  
help of others in young people's learning?  Rather than assuming that  
education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, they  
question what it would mean to think of it as a process guiding  
youths' participation in public life more generally.

- - - - - - - - d a n a h ( d o t ) o r g - - - - - - - -

"i was just a girl in a room full of women
licking stamps and laughing
i remember the feeling of community brewing
of democracy happening" (Ani DiFranco, Paradigm)

musings :: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts





- - - - - - - - d a n a h ( d o t ) o r g - - - - - - - -

"i was just a girl in a room full of women
licking stamps and laughing
i remember the feeling of community brewing
of democracy happening" (Ani DiFranco, Paradigm)

musings :: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts