Born Digital

The Reasons for Praise are Obvious

• The best book that addresses these issues, neither dystopian (like The Dumbest Generation) nor utopian
• Attempts to appeal to a public audience about important policy issues
• Emphasizes common sense and a sense of history
• Speaks to the concerns of parents and teachers
• Puts the emphasis on privacy rather than cybersafety (predator panic/cyberbullying) - law enforcement is a last resort
• Deals with practices of adults as well as practices of the young
• Calls out unnecessary technology gap between the old and young
• Warns against the problems of locking down campus and home computing for kids
• Acknowledges the rise of mobile and ubiquitous computing and the volatility of the market share of tech companies
• Grants the limitations of generational claims and the existence of a "participation gap"
• Recognizes the role of class
• Understands the importance of digital rhetoric and the "disclosure decision model"
• Composed with public audiences in mind with drafts and feedback on the web, as more and more books by academics should be

But why "Digital Natives"? - language that naturalizes cultural practices, furthers a colonial "othering" of the young, and oversimplifies complicated questions about membership in a group

Also why such a serious tone? Why can't its commentary on identity make more room for dissimulation, transgression, exhibitionism, etc.? Sure, decorum is important, but sometimes violating decorum can be very rhetorically effective. ("A lawyer, an ethnographer, and a rhetorician walk into a bar . . . )

The question of the "Generational Myth" raised by Siva Vaidhyanathan

My own biggest objection about the consequences of this rhetoric

"They all have access to networked digital technologies. And they all have the skills to use these technologies." (1)

"And they're connected to one another by a common culture." (2)

"They are joined by a set of common practices." (4)

"Digital natives can learn to use software in a snap." (6)

• Research attention needs to paid to older users
• There are curricular costs to assuming literacy among the young

Where literacy resources could go:

1) CODE - difficult without a common programming language and institutional will

2) SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS (interfaces and authoring tools) - easiest and sells proprietary corporate software for institutional use

3) PLATFORMS - hard to explain issues about infrastructure and material conditions

Money goes to teaching students already literate in making PowerPoint presentations to make PowerPoint presentations to provide easy results and confirm conventional wisdom

Information literacy and search

Finally, does the civic education/participatory culture model work?