Born Digital

RE: Born Digital; Understanding The First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser used as a text for 5376… I won’t go into a great amount of detail, but I would like to make a comment or two from each chapter. This is more a “Note to Self” to keep the content familiar than a critical review… But as always I have a few questions I would like to discuss.

Introduction – Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants and Settlers. I want to see myself as a Settler, way too old to be Born Digital, but I hope a step ahead of some of the other immigrants.
Page 9 designated the “purpose of this book is to separate what we need to worry about from what’s not so scary, what we ought to resist from what we ought to embrace.” Authors met that purpose, discussed many things they worried about and drew attention to issues. Whether that worry will ever result in a positive outcome or societal change is unknown at this point.

Basic diagram – Digital Native at center with concentric circles of influence going out. Friends and Family; Teachers, Coaches and Mentors; Trusted Companies and Software Providers; State and Law Enforcement. With the exception of a few lines, book concerned with how each influences and “protects” the digital native rather than the two-way communication and effect each has on the other.

Identities – You know, like, either these guys, like could have selected better quotes or like, they edited them you know to sound more day-to-day off the cuff rather than legitimate insight into the minds of this generation.

First introduces concept of blurred lines between public and private, on-line and real, which is discussed throughout book. Main worry is about convincing Digital Natives to develop the “digital literacy skills to control their identities” rather than considering why Digital Natives are not so controlling of their identities.

Dossiers – Continues theme of losing control rather than having an expanded presence. Assumes that there is something inherently wrong with information being readily available. Does not discuss any of the positive sides to transparency.

I do believe that what others post about you, tag in photos, make unsubstantiated claims, involve by association – may have unwanted repercussions, but there will be a “consider the source” effect (discussed somewhat in Quality chapter).

Privacy – A primary concern for the authors (they are both parents) but that ongoing theme of the blurring of public and private appears inevitable. Don’t wrest for control, find an absolute limit and defend that ground with resolve. Establish an effective means of removing untrue information.

Everybody needs to be more careful - a good example this week in the news was an Elk Grove California elementary school teacher who sent her 24 students home with a memories of the year DVD, that inadvertently included a six second video clip of her having sex on a couch. Is that a privacy issue or pure stupidity on her part?

Be careful what you make available, and remember public and private are constantly shifting. Records stored on an on-line off-site backup may become public domain without your consent. A discarded hard drive can still be read. An e-mail or Facebook post is never totally recalled or deleted.

Non disclosure and Privacy contracts are almost worthless if they include a right to modify.

Safety – Page 90 “Asking the children to help [remove malware] might achieve two things: a cleaner computer, and the start to a positive conversation about what’s going on online.”

Cyber-Bullying, Hacking, Trolls – these will always be around on-line. How you react to them, minimize exposure and prosecute are excellent questions.

Creators – Page 112 “Contributions that fall somewhere on the spectrum between the mundane and the magnificent.” Redefining derivative works, control the shaping of culture, the making of “meaning” (Page 125). Adds to existing means, does not replace. Requires media literacy.
Pirates – Napster – P2P – Grogster – Kazaa – Morpheus – sharing vs Campus Wide Agreements and collective ownership/purchase. Big issues no where near resolved.

DRM – says not popular … boo hoo too bad so sad… And of course those can always be hacked, but that becomes an intentional (prosecutable) act rather than an inadvertent sharing.
Copyright law is about to have major overhaul. Nearly no way around it.

Quality – One of the most important points and still not fully developed by authors If you don’t read and check the sources – it doesn’t matter if you are looking it up in Wikipedia or the New England Journal of Medicine (or something else with good reputation). Each contains good stuff and outdated or incorrect information.

Don’t believe a single source (or three million separate articles that infer they believed the single source). This is common sense, and if common sense is the digital literacy and critical thinking the authors speak of then I am all in favor of it – but connect with Privacy, Safety, Creators and Pirates already discussed…. If anybody can create and nobody is looking out for you – why would you believe it without questioning?

Overload - I love the TV Bing commercials. When will writers separate internet users from gamers? The obsessive nature of gamers is not an appropriate comparison to most internet using youth. This is addressed as a “problem” but may not really be a problem. Lots of questions….

Aggressors – Ties in with Safety and Overload already discussed, and Activists yet to come.

Again – please separate gaming from all technology. There must be an answer that does not involve surrendering rights to free speech.

Innovators – Good stuff – one of my favorite chapters, but still some negativity (Page 224) “Digital Natives are causing disruption…” and (Page 225) “The age of gerontocracy is over.” I take the democritization of creativity as a gain and the fact that firms want to monetize their enthusiasm as a positive step forward – not as a negative “watch your back because they are out to get you.”

Learners – Education and technology. Page 246 – “In every field, there are aspects of the curriculum that should be taught without screens or Net connections.” That’s a line that I would like to discuss with specific examples and research. Seems a bit to vague at this point.

VERY important point on page 250 (they are obviously not involved in a technical communication program) “Our schools have invested a lot of money installing new technologies. But no one has ever offered to teach either of us how to apply those technologies in our teaching.” Maybe this goes back to our class discussion where Digital Natives don’t need (want) instructions or invitations – they just take hold and figure it out.

Humor maybe, or an inconsistency, after lamenting the digital dossiers and all the information that exists and can’t be deleted, page 252 discussing libraries says, “The works of Digital Natives, and of everyone else living in the digital age, may well be less likely to be preserved than the writings of ninth-century monks on sturdy parchment.” Does a tangible artifact need to exist for a work to be preserved? Authors are not thinking like a Digital Native… Nobody could justify the printing of all the billions of pages of electronic content and storing it for perpetuity? Has anyone really considered that a “loss?”

Activists – Discussed last week in class. Big question… Vicarious incidental involvement or massive passionate devotion to activist philosophies? Yes, involvement can be widespread – but is that good for the cause?

Interesting reading. I'll post something about my anticipated iPhone Application interview on Monday.