Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project

by Mizuko Ito, Heather Horst, Matteo Bittanti

This report summarizes the results of an ambitious three-year ethnographic study, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings -- at home, in after school programs, and in online spaces. It offers a condensed version of a longer treatment provided in the book Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out (MIT Press, 2009). The authors present empirical data on new media in the lives of American youth in order to reflect upon the relationship between new media and learning. In one of the largest qualitative and ethnographic studies of American youth culture, the authors view the relationship of youth and new media not simply in terms of technology trends but situated within the broader structural conditions of childhood and the negotiations with adults that frame the experience of youth in the United States. The book that this report summarizes was written as a collaborative effort by members of the Digital Youth Project, a three-year research effort funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Reports on Digital Media and Learning

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Sociology, Social Media, Ebooks

98 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 5, 2009

Reviews

[Bryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The results of this project have been quoted ad nauseam in libraryland for years but just reading it, it feels like comedy, like an Onion News report about kids and computers. I grasp this study's import, but just to read it, it is hilarious.

[Alloughani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a study about how to involve the modern technologies in learning strategies and reduce the time that is wasted by young people in playing and doing something that is not improving there knowledge.

I heard that they will ask each student to buy an iPad for the school to do their homework's in it and communicate with each other to study their class's subjects.
My opinion is reading this book made me think several times before doing any harm to my children’s brain by introducing the wrong device to them.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is living in the modern life of technology.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written, readable summary that caused me to become interested in the book that goes into more detail. Definitely a good read for parents and educators who are open to but struggling with social media and its impact on their children or students.