ARM's Pick of the Week for 4/13/98
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Growing Up
Digital : The Rise of the Net Generation by Don Tapscott |
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Hardcover, 338 pages
Published by McGraw-Hill
Publication date: October 1997
Dimensions (in inches): 1.26 x 9.32 x 6.36
ISBN: 0070633614
Cyberculture
Editor's Recommended Book, 12/01/97:
With the help of about 300 members of the Net Generation, or N-Gen, Don Tapscott explores
what the Internet and other digital interactive technology is doing to and for our
children. Despite fears that new technology is making kids more antisocial and less
intellectual, Tapscott shows that kids are using it to play, build relationships, and
explore their world. And while the digital world has dangers, it also has greater
opportunities.
Tapscott shows what role technology plays in how N-Genners learn, socialize among themselves, and interact with friends and family--often through insightful quotes from the kids themselves. Tapscott demonstrates how many clear truths, such as that learning is social, have led to false conclusions, such as that computer use, being an individual activity, hampers social learning. And, with his N-Gen helpers, he puts the hype about Net porn in perspective. As one 15-year-old puts it, "I have never 'stumbled' into a site I didn't want to see. Not like on TV where I have occasionally flicked the channel only to 'stumble' into some gruesome murder scene." Yet the author also acknowledges that every new development has its problems and offers commonsense caution, quoting Alan Kay: "We don't have natural defenses against fat, sugar, salt, alcohol, alkaloids--or media. Television should be the last mass-communications medium to be naively designed and put into the world without a surgeon general's warning."
Upside, Karen Southwick :
Growing Up Digital takes a sociological approach to the intersection of the largest
generation in history and the Internet. According to Tapscott, the N-generation consists
of the 88 million people in the United States and Canada who will be between 2 and 22 in
2000. Tapscott calls this group a "tsunami" that will force changes in
communications, retailing, branding, advertising, education--even the way we build
communities. At the core of Growing Up Digital is Tapscott's contention that the
N-generation is so technology- and Net-savvy that instead of a generation gap, there's a
"generation lap" in which older generations feel threatened by the N-Gen's
facility with technology. At its best, Growing Up Digital demonstrates the
N-Generation's common characteristics--at least the technology-savvy lot at the center of
the book--and potential impact. The book's primary flaw is that it is often glib and
simplistic, drawing too many of its conclusions from a set of 300 technology-immersed kids
who represent the cream of the crop.
Synopsis:
Tapscott, who coined the term "Net Generation, " profiles this new group and
tells how its use of digital technology is reshaping the way society and individuals
interact. 15 illustrations.
