The Digital Divide: Writings for and Against Facebook, Youtube, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking PDF
Preview The Digital Divide: Writings for and Against Facebook, Youtube, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking
the dig ital div ide EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY Mark Bauerlein >>> JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. New York the digital divide Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking the dig ital div ide EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY Mark Bauerlein >>> JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. New York JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a divi sion of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Copyright © 2011 by Mark Bauerlein All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copy righted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada Pages 335–338 constitute an extension of this copyright page. Most Tarcher/Penguin books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchase for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. Special books or book excerpts also can be created to fit specific needs. For details, write Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Special Markets, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The digital divide: arguments for and against Facebook, Google, texting, and the age of social networking/edited and introduced by Mark Bauerlein. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-101-54679-6 1. Digital divide. 2. Technological innovations—Social aspects. 3. Social networks. I. Bauerlein, Mark. HM851.D524 2011 2011019688 303.48'33—dc23 Book design by Lucy Albanese While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. contents Introduction, Mark Bauerlein vii section one: the brain, the senses “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” Marc Prensky 3 “Do They Really Think Differently?” Marc Prensky 12 “The Internet,” Steven Johnson 26 “Learning to Think in a Digital World,” Maryanne Wolf 34 “Learning Theory, Video Games, and Popular Culture,” James Gee 38 “Usability of Websites for Teenagers,” Jakob Nielsen 44 “User Skills Improving, But Only Slightly,” Jakob Nielsen 52 “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr 63 “Your Brain Is Evolving Right Now,” Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan 76 section two: social life, personal life, school “Identity Crisis,” Sherry Turkle 99 “They Call Me Cyberboy,” Douglas Rushkoff 112 “The People’s Net,” Douglas Rushkoff 116 “Social Currency,” Douglas Rushkoff 127 “The Eight Net Gen Norms,” Don Tapscott 130 “Love Online,” Henry Jenkins 160 “We Can’t Ignore the Influence of Digital Technologies,” Cathy Davidson 166 “Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism,” Christine Rosen 172 “Activists,” John Palfrey and Urs Gasser 189 section three: the fate of culture “Nomadicity,” Todd Gitlin 207 “What Is Web 2.0,” Tim O’Reilly 215 “Web Squared,” Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle 230 “Web 2.0,” Andrew Keen 242 “Wikipedia and Beyond,” Katherine Mangu-Ward 250 “Judgment,” Maggie Jackson 271 “A Dream Come True,” Lee Siegel 295 “The End of Solitude,” William Deresiewicz 307 “Means,” Clay Shirky 318 Credits 335 Index 339 <Mark Bauerlein> introduction Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory Uni versity. His books include Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (1997) and Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906 (2001). His essays have appeared in PMLA, Partisan Review, Wilson Quar terly, and Yale Review, and his commentaries and reviews have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, Reason magazine, and elsewhere. More information can be found at www.dumbestgeneration.com. I N EARLY 2011, The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt from a book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a treatise on the superiority of “Chinese mothers” over “Western moth ers,” written by Yale law professor Amy Chua. The book excerpt was clearly intended to court controversy, but the exact way that that controversy played out illustrated well the new ways we commu nicate. Within hours, it seemed, the article had exploded in op-eds, blogs, and follow-up stories from The New Yorker to NPR to News week to angryasianman.com, with reactions ranging from enraged to regretful to cheering. The author’s eldest daughter defended her mother in an effusive testimonial in the New York Post. I just Googled “Amy Chua” and 544,000 results came up. Most amazing viii introduction of all, perhaps, was the response of readers—not the content, but the quantity. At the present moment, fully 6,901 comments have piled up on the website beneath the excerpt. And of course, as all this unfolded, the hardcover edition of Tiger Mother climbed to #4 on Amazon. The book had only been available for a week. For all the hoopla, however, we may be certain that in a few more days, attention will shift elsewhere to other affairs. That’s the pace of news in the digital era. The ups and downs of current events run steeper and faster, as if a roller coaster were squeezed into a smaller space. Ballyhooed controversies happened before the Web came along, but they didn’t arise, expand, and deflate so quickly and voluminously, and with so many participants in the process. In the days of print-only, the excerpt would have taken days or weeks to circulate to other journalists, and reader responses would have amounted to several dozen letters to the editor, three of them selected for publication in a later edition. By comparison, today’s communication travels at light speed, and any edgy, comic, or other- wise quirky story or video can “go viral.” Everybody can weigh in and say almost anything they want. What does it mean? How are we to understand the change—or, perhaps more important, what is it that we are supposed to under stand? What stands out in this case is that sublime number on the comments ledger: 6,901. It signifies the provocative nature of the excerpt and a watchful, interactive audience. The process sounds unequivocally positive, especially given the conditions the The Wall Street Journal sets for comments. “Community Rules” disallow ano nymity, and “You must demonstrate appropriate respect” (no vul garity). Violators are banned. As a result, comments there are thoughtful and critical. Still, one has to wonder about the purpose of so many people writing so many things about a 2,500-word newspaper piece. It’s a new phenomenon, unique to the Digital Age, and it calls for exam ination. Some of the contributors to this volume would maintain introduction ix that this is democracy in action, meritoriously so. That ordinary people have the chance to speak back and have their opinions pub lished at one of the nation’s leading newspapers can only enhance civic life. Others, however, question what Journal readers think when they encounter 4,383 comments to a news story and believe that post #4,384 really matters. Is this democratic participation or fruitless vanity? The writings in this anthology address that and many other questions. They present a range of judgments about the Digital Age and digital tools and behaviors that have enveloped our wak ing hours. Indeed, whenever people consider the marvelous and unprecedented ways that the Digital Age has transformed our lives, they should keep that curious fact in mind. However sweeping and abrupt the changes are, most individuals have absorbed them with dispatch. The flood of digital tools was and is mighty and abrupt, but adults and youths generally behave as if it has always been thus. Calmly and expertly, they wield devices and form habits that were inconceivable only ten or twenty years ago. And it has happened so quickly. Cell phones, e-mail, the Web, YouTube, and the rest have speeded up communications, shopping, photographing, and studying, and they have also quickened the conversion of each new and desirable invention into a regular part of life. At a clip that would stun a pre-1980 person, novelties promptly become customs. One or another of them may mark a fabulous breakthrough, but they don’t stand out for long as striking advances in the march of technology. Soon enough they settle into one more utility, one more tool or practice in the mundane course of job and leisure. How many decades passed between the invention of the telephone and its daily use by 90 percent of the population? Today, the path from private creation to pandemic consumption is measured in months. Consider the Facebook phenomenon. The network dates back to 2004, but seems to have been around forever. In six years it has
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