Digital Natives: A Myth?

A POLIS Paper

A report of the panel held at the London School of Economics and

Political Science, on 24th November 2009.

Editors: Ranjana Das and Charlie Beckett

www.polismedia.org
www.charliebeckett.org
[email protected]

Polis gratefully acknowledges the support of Ofcom in making this event and the
subsequent report possible.
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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................................3
Charlie Beckett

ENABLING MEDIA LITERACY FOR DIGITAL NATIVES A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS? ..................4

Sonia Livingstone

TALKING ABOUT THEIR GENERATION: CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE DIGITAL LEARNER ....................7

David Buckingham

TEENAGERS USING THE INTERNET: RIDERS, DRIVERS, DABBLERS AND OUTSIDERS ..................... 10
Chris Davies

LEARNING AND SOCIAL RELATIONS IN TEENS ONLINE INTERACTIONS........................................... 12

Rebekah Willett

SOPHIA, THE BIG COMPUTER AND OTHER STORIES: LOOKING BEYOND HOMOGENEITY IN
YOUTHFUL DIGITAL LITERACIES..................................................................................................................... 15
Ranjana Das
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INTRODUCTION
Charlie Beckett, Director of POLIS

Myths can be useful ways for societies to tell stories freakish evolutionary process with exceptional
about themselves. They can help us preserve our technological powers.
values and cope with change. So the idea that young
people are particularly, even naturally adept at using It is very appropriate that this report and the event
new media technologies is comforting and perhaps that it is based on was inspired by the Polis
even exciting. Even if older adults find digital Silverstone Scholar Ranjana Das, a PhD student at
devices and processes challenging we can reassure the LSE Media and Communications Department.
ourselves that the next generation will take to them The Polis Silverstone Scholarship is awarded to
effortlessly and creatively. I regularly hear from support an outstanding student who is working on
middle aged digital enthusiasts as well as the an area of international media research relevant to
technophobes how their teenage children can do the ideas of the late Professor Roger Silverstone.
amazing and/or disturbing things online. They blog, Roger was the Head of the Media and
game and network on a variety of platforms, often Communications Department and the founding
multi-tasking, producing sophisticated and rich spirit of Polis. Polis was set up in 2006 with the
patterns of communication and expression. This is purpose of examining journalism and society at this
wonderful and quite often true. But as the evidence time of extraordinary change and significant impact
and analysis of this report shows, it is a myth that for the news media. Central to the work of Polis has
this kind of youthful dexterity and literacy is been the idea of media change and its political and
somehow inevitable or ubiquitous. And this matters. ethical relationship to citizens and the state.
As Professor Livingstone says, if we dont
Ranjanas work alongside the research of the four
understand the reality of young peoples use of the
contributors to this report may help kill the
Internet, then we wont realize how important it is
unhelpful myth of the digital native. But more
to them and how vital it is to provide the skills and
importantly, their analyses offer ways of
resources for them to make the myth a reality.
understanding how we can all benefit by greater
The fact is that young people experience the same investment in digital media literacy. I am very
opportunities and challenges as everyone else who grateful to everyone who took part for giving us
uses digital technologies. The cultural and social such an entertaining and stimulating evening at the
barriers to conventional literacies appear to replicate LSE. And by publishing this short collection of their
themselves online. A young person who struggles to papers I hope that we are helping to replace the
read a book will quite likely find online navigation myth with a message. The message is that media are
difficult, too. There may be magical things that we critical to our understanding of the world, but also
can do online, but there is no miraculous power that to how well we can live our lives. As Roger
changes intellectual frogs into digital princes. Those Silverstone said, media are now environmental. I
people growing up over the last decade or so may would argue that all media are in some way, digital.
well be more familiar with a world of virtual and So natives or not, we all need greater online media
networked culture and communications. However, literacy if we are to fulfill our potential as individuals
individual youths have not been endowed by some and citizens.
 4

ENABLING MEDIA LITERA CY FOR DIGITAL NATIVES A

CONTRADICTION IN TER MS?

Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science

Introduction because they are worse at inhibiting irrelevant

information The major developmental change
Being perhaps an old-fashioned academic, Ill begin during the primary years is the development of self-
with a Hegelian argument structure thesis, regulatory skills Cognitive development is
antithesis, synthesis. As an aside, I note that to check experience-dependent, and older children have had
this argument structure, I looked it up on Wikipedia, more experiences than younger children.iii
which told me that Hegel never said this: a case of a
digital immigrants argument corrected by a digital Synthesis
natives tool. Never mind, back to my argument.
The arguments so far are too polarised, the
Thesis dichotomies are too simple.iv So, some things are
changing in young peoples styles of learning and
Young people think differently from their parents acting, but that doesnt mean they are fundamentally
because they were born into a digital world. This is transformed. Rather, it seems that ways in which
clearly a much hyped claim on which we are today knowledge is represented and the ways in which
asked to reflect. As Marc Prensky put it:i pupils prefer to learn are being reshaped by the
affordances of the technologies that they engage
Digital natives are used to receiving information
with and the pedagogic, commercial and peer
really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-
cultures that contextualise their daily activities. Such
task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather
changes, however, are occurring on a longer
than the opposite. They prefer random access (like
timescale, and far more variably and unevenly, than
hypertext). They function best when networked.
any claims of a wholesale transformation within the
They thrive on instant gratification and frequent
past decade might suggest.
rewards. They prefer games to serious work.
In developing this synthesis, in my short time
And most important, those struggling and accented
remaining, Ill make three observations, based on my
digital immigrants:
recently project, UK Children Go Online.v
Todays teachers have to learn to communicate in
First
the language and style of their students.ii
There are lots of things that children and young
Antithesis
people can do online, and also lots of things they
Young people do not think so very differently after struggle with. Anyone who has sat down with
all. Its all hype. Children are no more or less children in front of a computer knows the
sociable, distractible, haphazard or creative in their ambiguities involved in characterising their
learning than they ever have been. Certainly I have competences.
read no serious scientific research that shows
The voice of the digital native: We know the
childrens brains are changing or being rewired by
computer, were the generation of computers.
hours in front of the computer, as Prensky suggests.
(Focus group, 14-16 yr olds)
Let me quote from Professor Usha Goswami, a
psychologist at Cambridge University: A sceptical voice: Every time I try to look for
something, I can never find it. It keeps coming up
It is now recognized that children think and reason
with things that are completely irrelevant and a
in the same ways as adults from early in childhood.
load of old rubbish really. (Heather, 17)
Children are less efficient reasoners than adults
because they are more easily mislead in their logic by And an ambivalent voice: I think in comparison to
interfering variables such as contextual variables, and my parents and loads of the older generation I
know, I do know more. But I think there are a lot of
 5

people that know a lot more than me A lot of my of usefulness or relevance, others a matter of
friends know a lot And I learn from them. (Lorie, truthfulness, others a matter of paying to be highly
aged 17) ranked. Working class children appear more
confused about this than middle class children.
Watching children click links quickly or juggle
multiple windows does not, necessarily, confirm that I nearly put these two points earlier up with my
they are engaging with online resources wisely or, argument that children dont know quite as much as
even, as they themselves may have hoped we must it may appear. But I think they better illustrate my
not be beguiled by their confidence. Moreover, concern about the legibility of websites. For there is
some of the variation in what young people do and little on the web that guides users young or old
dont know, or can and cant do, is partly a matter of about how to determine reliability, or how to choose
socioeconomic inequalities: for poorer children, among searched results. They and we figure this
digital disadvantage may compound social out for themselves. The result, as Ive shown, is
disadvantage. Thus for some, the internet is a rich, both uneven and unequal.
engaging and stimulating resource; for others, it
remains a sporadic and rather narrowly used one. Finally

Second This brings me to my last point. Why am I being so

downbeat? Isnt there plenty of evidence for the
One crucial reason that young people also struggle many and wonderful things young people are doing
with some of the affordances of the digital world is online learning, creating, participating, expressing
that it is often opaque hard to read, illegible. Just themselves, and more? Yes of course.
as in the world of print so too in the digital world,
literate readers require legible texts. Hence my title, Enabling media literacy for digital
natives a contradiction in terms? My purposes in
Ill set aside the way computers talk to us of illegal flagging what young people dont know, and dont
commands, fatal errors, and decisions to abort, while do online is to encourage the provision of more
you lose all your recent work. resources of all kinds pedagogic, in relation to
media and information literacy, and in relation to the
Instead, consider the ways in which online sites and better and more legible design of websites. The
services are designed either to enable or impede the notion of digital natives, I suggest, is promoted by
users ability to locate them, navigate them, ascertain two constituencies the first is educationalists, and
their reliability, judge their authorship, contribute to they have much work to do to enable children to
them and, of course, learn from them. interpret online content critically and creatively; the
second is those who provide content to children
An astonishing number of sites, it seems, enable a
and, especially, those who market to youth, and they
degree of navigating, downloading and even
too, I have suggested, have a responsibility to
uploading without their young users gaining the
improve the legibility of what they offer so that
faintest idea who produced the site or why, where
children can make fair and informed judgements
the information came from and what happens to
about what exactly they are being offered.
anything they may contribute to it.
In short, if we celebrate young peoples digital
Ofcoms latest report on childrens media literacy,
literacy too much, providing more resources
published last month,vi found that, for 12-15 year
becomes a lower priority. On the other hand, if we
olds in the UK:
recognise how their knowledge and resources may
Two in three make some kind of reliability check limit their opportunities, the task ahead becomes
when visiting a new website (do other people clearer.
recommend it, is it up to date, has it a trust mark, Endnotes
can you confirm the information across sites). This
is no more than checked reliability two years ago i. Page 2: Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives,
and crucially, a large minority for whom the digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-2.
internet has nonetheless become the first port of call
for information and homework make few if any ii. Ibid, page 4.
checks.
iii. Page 1-2: Goswami, U. (2008). Byron Review
Though most use search engines, they are not sure on the Impact of New Technologies on Children: A
how the results are selected some think it a matter Research Literature: Child Development
 6

(Prepared for the Byron Review). v. See Livingstone, S. (2009). Children and the
Cambridge Internet: Great Expectations, Challenging
Realities. Cambridge: Polity. Also
iv. See Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. Livingstone, S., & Bober, M. (2005). UK
(2008). The 'digital natives' debate: A critical Children Go Online: Final Report of Key Project
review of the evidence. British Journal of Findings. London: London School of
Educational Technology, 39(5), 775-786. Also, Economics and Political Science.
Toledo, C. A. (2007). Digital culture:
Immigrants and tourists responding to the vi. Ofcom (2009). Childrens Media Literacy
natives' drumbeat. International Journal of Audit: Interim findings. London: Office of
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Communications.
19(1), 84-92.
 7

TALKING ABOUT THEIR G ENERATION: CONSTRUCTIONS OF

THE DIGITAL LEARNER

David Buckingham, Institute of Education

The idea of digital natives has been around for at consequences of gaming. Games are seen to have a
least ten years now; and it has attracted a whole range of positive educational benefits; they
considerable amount of criticism. In my view, there develop cognitive skills, and teach children all sorts
are several problems with this idea, and with some of important areas of content. The book offers a
of the cognate expressions the digital generation, certain justification of games in terms of what Brian
the net generation and so on. These ideas typically Sutton-Smith calls a rhetoric of play as progress, a
overstate the differences between generations, and developmental rhetoric. In this rhetoric, play is
understate the diversity within them the age justified in terms of its educational value; while all
differences within generations, as well as forms of the dangerously anti-social aspects of play - what
social inequality. Many so-called digital natives or Sutton Smith calls phantasmagoria - are swept
members of the digital generation are no more aside. Theres also an assumption here that learning
intensive users of digital media than many so-called transfers, so what we learn from playing computer
digital immigrants. They are by no means as games somehow transfers to what goes on in real
technologically fixated or as technologically life. So we learn hand-eye coordination, we learn
proficient as is often assumed. They dont problem solving, and somehow this makes us better
necessarily have the skills, the competency or the problem solvers in real life although these
natural fluency that theyre assumed to possess. arguments dont seem to apply to some of the more
negative aspects of game play.
There is a tendency in this discussion to essentialise
generations and indeed to exoticise young people. There is a sense here of learning as somehow
There is a familiar sentimentality about children and spontaneous, a matter of learning by doing, which
youth here, mixed up with a kind of fear about what goes along with the books general dismissal of
might be going on in this younger generation. This schooling, or of formal education. What we find
characterisation of young people is also strangely here is a valorising of informal learning - although
belittling: it assumes that young people automatically the distinctions between informal and formal are
spontaneously know everything they need to know typically very loosely and vaguely defined. So digital
about technology, rather than having to make an natives are assumed to want to learn in different
effort to learn about it. Ultimately, this argument is ways: they want more interactive, game-like,
tied up with a kind of technological determinism, discovery-based forms of learning, they want to be
the idea that technology in and of itself produces multi-tasking, rather than doing all that boring
generational change. I would accept that growing up formal stuff they apparently get in school. There are
with a technology may imply a different orientation many problems with this argument and
towards it than coming to it later in life although it particularly with the idea that there is some kind of
is certainly debatable how lasting that kind of fundamental generational difference in terms of
difference is. Nevertheless, the notion of digital learning style, which is produced by technology.
natives seems to me to be a very problematic way of
conceiving of this. If this argument is so problematic, why is it so
popular? What functions does this rhetoric serve in
For Marc Prensky, who seems to have originated terms of public debate, particularly around
this idea, the issue of learning was a key aspect of educational policy? I would say it is partly driven by
the difference between the generations. Prenskys a kind of sales pitch, both by commercial companies
latest book is called Dont Bother Me Mom, Im selling technology into schools, and by policy-
Learning, and it seeks to provide a vindication of makers looking for a technological quick fix to what
computer games as a learning medium. This entails, they perceive to be the problems of education. One
on the one hand, an undermining of all the can track this track this discourse historically,
arguments about the harmful effects of games (for through initiatives like the National Grid for
example in relation to violence), while, on the other, Learning, the work of BECTA (the British
making a series of assertions about the positive Educational Communications and Technology
Agency), the Harnessing Technology strategy, and
most recently the Rose Review of the Primary
 8

Curriculum. While the digital native features in all of homes and in schools, in terms of how people use
these, there is also a certain ambivalence here. We technology, in what they say about technology, and
have the rhetoric of young people as spontaneously in terms of how the activity of using technology is
technologically competent, on the one hand; but on produced, constructed and regulated. So, for
the other hand they are seen to be lacking in the example, we could consider how parents (myself
fundamental skills or competencies that they included) construct their children as technology
apparently need in order to survive in the so-called experts, while at the same time trying to monitor
knowledge economy. These contradictions are and regulate what they are doing with the
served up in a kind of policy mush: the digital native technology. This mutual construction of generations
goes in with personalisation, informal learning, can be quite a complex and ambivalent process.
learning styles, multiple intelligences, and so on - a
series of fashionable concepts which are really very One of my PhD students, Amie Kim, has been
ill-defined and problematic. looking at this in the context of Korea. One of the
methods she has used was to ask young people to
For companies, this kind of argument represents a write advice manuals for their teachers about how to
valuable means of generating profit; while for use technology. A lot of the advice they give is about
government, it seems to offer the promise of a the etiquette, the social and cultural uses of
technological fix. If young people are disaffected technology, rather than the technical aspects; and
from school, the argument goes, we can solve that this is tied up with the defining of generational
by putting a lot of computers and interactive difference. My colleagues and I are also doing some
whiteboards into classrooms, because these things work at the moment interviewing teachers, and one
are assumed to automatically motivate them. In my of the things we find is that teachers professions of
view, this is characteristic of a wider tendency to technological competence or incompetence also
take a cultural or a social problem and present it as a entail a set of claims about their position in this
technical one, and then to offer a technical (or generational order, and about their professional
technological) solution. In this context, advocating identity. So there are some interesting questions
the use of technology in schools also comes to be about how this notion of generations actually gets
tied up with a kind of wishful thinking about how employed in everyday discourse and everyday
technology will bring about a fundamental practice.
transformation of power relationships in the
classroom. Technology, we are told, will move us Another aspect of this project has been a large-scale
towards a more democratic form of education, survey of more than 2000 children and teachers
undermine the power of the teacher and create a across three secondary schools and four primary
more student-centred classroom. Here again, the schools. We are still analysing this data, but the big
evidence for those kinds of assertions is very limited; picture that is emerging is that the similarities
and indeed theres a good deal of evidence to the between the teachers and the students are much
contrary, for example if you look at the research more marked than the differences. Teachers and
about the use of whiteboards in schools. students have a great deal in common in terms of
their media uses not only in relation to television,
Despite these problems, I do think the concept of but also the internet. There are differences, most
generations and generational differences might have notably in relation to games; but a good many
some traction. It is interesting to consider how teachers are into social networking, and both
discourses or arguments about generational students and teachers also insist on the importance
differences or identities are used both in public of non-media activities. The differences between the
debate and in everyday life, especially around media generations may be more to do with the purposes for
and technology. There is a body of theoretical work which people use particular technologies, rather than
here, for example in Mannheims macro-level with the actual media or the technology in itself.
analysis of the social, historical construction of Equally, there is no simple dichotomy between high
generations. But generations are also constructed culture and low culture here, no clear hierarchy of
and people come to define themselves as members taste or cultural value. It would be quite inaccurate
of generations at the micro-level, in everyday to say, as Prensky and others seem to be suggesting,
interactions. Here I would draw on the notion of that teachers and students are living in different
generationing, the idea that (both for young people technological or cultural worlds.
and for adults) we are defining ourselves as
members of generations through an ever-shifting Likewise, if we analyse how media or technology are
performance of age identities. This process plays out in actually used in school, there is a variety of practices
 9

and a range of meanings constructed around Communication Technology as a separate,

technology. What goes on in an ICT lesson is compulsory school subject. By contrast, we are
different from an English lesson, from a media looking to media literacy education as a potential
lesson and so on; there is regulation, but there is also third space, a meeting ground and a space for
resistance. Bringing the technology into school is a dialogue across the differences and the similarities
complex, ambivalent and difficult thing; it doesnt between teachers and students although this too is
have guaranteed consequences. The curriculum and an ambivalent and sometimes difficult move...
grammar of schooling also represent constraints on
what can be done and many of those constraints
are necessary and are there for good reasons. So the
idea that employing technology somehow bridges a
generational gap is quite misleading. Certainly, the
answer is not to be found in Information and
 10

TEENAGERS USING THE INTERNET: RIDERS, DRIVERS,

DABBLERS AND OUTSIDERS

Chris Davies, University of Oxford

Im going to talk about the notion of a digital native happy going in whatever direction they want to, they
with respect to a research project that Im involved werent just riding it, they were making of it what
in at the moment, funded by BECTA. What were they wished. These were also some specialists, using
looking at is a project called The Learner and their sometimes really quite obscure things and not doing
Context, which looks at how young people between mainstream stuff, but there werent plenty of those.
eight, in primary school, up to 19 year olds in Then there were the dabblers, the ambivalent ones
university use technology in their lives, and how that who do much the same, but dont quite want to be
supports their learning away from formal education, characterised as liking technology. And, finally,
in the home and other places. So in effect what Im there were the outsiders, the unconnected ones.
talking about is the notion of digital native, in
particular as it works out or doesnt work out in the Through this process of trying to classify these
home. learners, I felt that we have finally worked through
to an answer to that question at the top: which
Its not a notion that weve been particularly subset is the digital native. At the start, we saw that
working with, but its a notion that you cant actually top group, the specialists, the drivers as the digital
escape from either, its something tenacious and natives, but I have come to see this differently now.
always there. I find it quite hard to resolve, so
preparing for this talk tonight has been quite an And so first, just a few examples. Obviously, this
interesting experience. Calling the young people we first lad here fits in very nicely, an interesting boy
spoke to riders, drivers, dabblers and outsiders who, because he lives alone with his dad, his dad lets
was probably the first and last time those particular him get on with whatever he wants to do on his
terms will be used, but theyre of some use, and Ill computer. He spent many hours every evening
explain what I mean by them as I go on. doing things that we know lots of lads do. He
talked very interestingly about his addiction to
Most of the time, in analysing our findings we used World of Warcraft, and how his friends online
more straightforward terms: the key one for me was helped him out a bit, and thus he clearly fits certain
the notion of the mainstream: across the board, the stereotypes of digital native. Or, in a more positive
young people we were looking at generally shared a sense, perhaps this young woman who was very
certain set of mainstream activities. Nearly keen on photography, as a member of a group who
everybody, to some extent, was either doing these or would take photographs and upload them and put
wishing they were doing these: some degree of social comments. She was the one who was charged with
networking and communications, leisure activities, improving the sort of quality of the photos - she
some degree of creative activities, and some was the one that would do it. Then there is this
schoolwork. That largely constituted the teenage university student: When I was 12 I started sort of
mainstream. As you can see from this slide, Ive music production with software... musical software,
really sort of plotted how as they grow older their and hes at university, his computers on all the time,
priorities change within that set of things. As they and he has his laptop beside him for his ideas and
got nearer to GCSEs and made the option choices this young woman who uses things like Facebook
and A levels and so on, the balance changed in how and to begin to create an identity for herself as a
they spread their time. Then when they were in journalist online. All of these sort of fitted in to the
university they were looking towards employment, stereotype digital native, and for a while it seemed
again those same things were deployed slightly fairly straightforward.
differently.
Then at the next level down, theres lots of kids out
In the kind of patterns we came out with, we can see there who are very happily using these things,
that most of the learners we met were kind of riding putting a lot of effort into making sure they get hold
the mainstream, having a good time, enjoying using of them, that theyre allowed to use them as they
it and were going along with it and getting what they wish; sometimes experiencing difficulties using
wanted out of it. Some go beyond that, and drive them. They recognise that books are important, but
their own ways around the mainstream. Theyre are actually very happy to have control over using
 11

the internet for research he has to do for his GCSE and they share that idea amongst themselves, as
work. We could show you hundreds of remarks bestowing some degree of autonomy.
along these lines. But the more ambivalent ones, I
think, are also interesting; there are lots who want to That is something specific about young people,
state their lack of digital identity in a certain way. because young people have a lot of aspiration, but
Usually they will say, I dont use the computer that very little power to realise it. And it seems to be
much - oh well, okay, if I think about it I do, but I that they do view technology as a way of giving
dont want to be seen as someone who does, I dont them a little bit of extra freedom; its one of the
want to be like a self-obsessed computer-freak. things that will bestow that. And that they learn
those skills, they know what to use, theyre very
Going right up to some of the Oxford under- limited - they operate in quite a similar way with
graduates we spoke to this year, who were quite each other.
interesting as well because they are experiencing a
greater tension between their identity as Oxford So then what were left with is the notion of digital
undergraduates, people who have committed to the natives as a signifier rather than a description. It
book. And, yet, in fact they have still brought with doesnt give a lot of information about what they
them certain habits and pleasures of their computer understand and what they do, but it does give some
use that werent quite valued any more. information about why theyre enthusiastic and
about what the energy is that could be built on. It
And then there are the outsiders, who have been does seem to me like a socio-cultural phenomenon,
excluded for reasons of finance and so on, and also in terms of what theyre learning from each other,
family circumstances. I thought this one was very what it means, what the values of using technology
interesting, where this boy wants to use the are. This doesnt mean that they know how to use
computer for his work, hes a 14 year old, but has to these technologies particularly well, but there is an
do it at a distance by phone with his father who energy there that we could be building on more.
does the actual work on the internet. Its there, but
his father lives a very long way away from the
school. Or this one, whos excluded, its there but
she doesnt use it. Theres a whole picture there of
what the parental involvement and the anxieties that
some of them feel give rise to. Or this one who
hasnt got anything, but would like it, and who is not
very happy without it.

So, in conclusion, which ones are the digital natives?

What were seeing with these people from my point
of view, that weve seen in the homes exclusively, is
that there is a lot of shared practice among them,
but then those are practices all of us share,
regardless of their orientations towards or their
opportunities for using technologies. What theyre
doing are largely kind of generic tools and skills,
theres not a lot of highly specialised and difficult
technical stuff.

So the important thing for me is, and what makes it

generational, what makes me want to say, well, I
think, they all are digital natives, they all fit a version
of the idea of digital natives. The reason its
generational for me, its not very deep, but its there:
seeing them in the home, what they want from these
technologies is the freedom to do the things that
they want. Theyve got to battle for that freedom to
some extent, sometimes, with their parents. They
want autonomy for their entertainment, for their
socialising, for the way they do their schoolwork, for
all these areas - they see technology as offering that,
 12

LEARNING AND SOCIAL RELATIONS IN TEEN S ONLINE

INTERACTIONS
Rebekah Willett, Institute of Education

I am going to share an example of one young skateboarding videos critically analysing other
persons interactions with digital technologies which works as well as his own. He evaluates and seeks to
potentially positions him as a digital native in terms improve his own work: he said that on this DVD he
of his learning and social relations. Then Im going was unimaginative, always using slow motion for the
to raise questions about how framing his activities as jumps, for example. He has a goal for his next
those of a digital native limits our understanding of project: to experiment with different music rhythms
his interactions by ignoring some fundamental and tempos to match the style of skateboarding.
things that are occurring in relation to his learning And as a learner in this context, he has a positive
and social relations. The example comes from a identity. He is taking part in constructionist
project about amateur uses of camcorders in the UK learning, engaging in non-linear forms of learning
that I did with David Buckingham and Maria Pini that are needed for his project, and going on the
funded by the AHRC. Part of the project involved web for answers to questions. His learning is part of
interviewing a range of camcorder users from his identity as a budding professional, and he aims to
different camcorder cultures who we contacted use more advanced software (Final Cut Pro) for his
through online videosharing sites, through a survey next project. Finally, his learning is embedded in his
we conducted, and through clubs, schools and other social relations with his skateboarding friends, and
organisations. Im going to focus on one he has an audience for his work at school. We might
interviewee whom we interviewed partly because of say that Jacob is displaying the new modes and styles
his interest in making videos connected with his of learning associated with digital natives
skateboarding culture, but I will occasionally branch motivated, positive identity as a learner connected
out and refer to participants in the wider project. with a future profession, learning through trial and
error, hes not daunted by the prospect of learning
Jacob is a twelve-year old boy, who gave us a more advanced technologies.
skateboarding DVD that he had made which
contains carefully edited movies of Jacob and each If we look closer, however, we find that the
his friends doing tricks (or bailing). The videos were picture is not so clear-cut. First, as with many
edited in iMovie and each video is accompanied by a of the young people we interviewed for our
different style of music. The wider project, participatory media projects often
DVD is professional looking with a printed involve access to economic, human and social
covering, designed by Jacob, complete with his resources. Jacobs family had several
company name, Mimic Films. The DVD has a camcorders, and so they were happy for him to
stylised menu, accompanied by the sound of take one skateboarding with him (at the risk of
skateboard wheels on pavement. And he told me getting damaged or stolen), he had a specialised
that he would like to run a skateboard company, fish-eye lens used in skateboarding videos to
selling skateboards and accessories (including produce a particular aesthetic, he had a
DVDs). He has already sold a few of his computer that had the latest video editing
skateboarding DVDs, thanks in part to a teacher software and had enough spare memory and
who was so impressed with the videos that he
was fast enough so that he could edit video.
shared the DVD with the entire year group.

It is easy to celebrate the learning with which Jacob Many of the young people we interviewed as
has engaged. He is clearly a motivated learner, part of our project had face to face social
spending hours needed to produce his DVD. His networks which included older, more
learning is embedded in his (skateboarding) culture, experienced technology users. iMovie was new
helping him to make sense of the DVDs that he to the Jacob and his father, they worked
watches and connecting with his own experiences. together to produce the skateboarding DVD.
He is reflecting on his consumption of Jacobs father is a graphic designer and artist,
 13

and therefore is familiar with digital In our study of everyday domestic uses of
technologies and design principles. Although camcorders we saw the camcorder acting as a prop
Jacobs father had not used iMovie before, as in their play or as a mirror; they would perform silly
with any learner, his experience and knowledge things for the camera and then watch themselves
back; they would prepare skits together which they
contributed to his interaction with the
planned to film; they would play at being a media
programme. Therefore, Jacobs experience of producer, for example, providing football
learning iMovie was partly scaffolded by his commentary as they filmed themselves playing
father, learning side-by-side but having other football with their siblings or friends. So I would
resources upon which to draw. argue that the digital technologies here were part of
the everyday play of young people, rather than new
And Jacobs learning is also scaffolded by forms of interaction and communication. As with
technologies. Software companies have an other digital interactions playing videogames,
economic imperative to scaffold learning so as interacting on social networking sites - this play is
to encourage users to continue using their part of the experience of being a young person
product. iMovie users can start with very basic confined to particular spaces, its often a way of
editing and proceed to more advanced levels. alleviating boredom and a way of sustaining existing
friendships. In our study of more purposeful
In terms of conceptual frameworks related to videomakers who share their productions online, the
filming and editing, it is not clear in our study of productions allow groups of friends to demonstrate
videomakers that these skills are being learned their friendship and (as almost all the participants
simply through the act of videomaking. who shared videos online were young men) to
Interviews with parents and teachers indicates display particular forms of masculinity. We also
that there are many conceptual frameworks interviewed mobile phone videomakers who display
their productions online, and these included more
being taught directly to students in relation to
young women. And here the digital interactions were
video production. One of our parents in our about sharing particular moments with existing
wider project explained that his son did not friends and family or keeping a kind of personal
understand that he did not need to shoot things video diary of these moments rather than interacting
sequentially, and that editing can involve with the wider world. So for a majority of the
moving segments around. We cant assume that videomakers who were posted work online,
children simply pick up these conceptual videomaking was about play, friendship and identity,
frameworks or even that they learn how to use rather than trying to find some sort of affinity
technologies efficiently on their own. So we space in the ether which would help them improve
need to ask if young videomakers like Jacob are their videomaking.
learning in new ways, or is Jacob learning in Part of the assumption about digital natives is
more traditional ways being scaffolded by that having a global audience online provides
technology as well as his father and his social motivation to produce, assess and improve
resources connected with his skateboarding work in communication with supportive online
culture. networks. Obviously there are questions about
So there are questions about how far Jacob how much YouTube with its ubiquitous flaming
exemplifies digital natives in terms of new styles and acts as a supportive space, and similarly in social
forms of learning. The other idea I want to question network sites and other kinds of online social
is about digital natives as dependent on new spaces there are uneven power dynamics.
technologies for communication and social However, I also want to make the point that not
interaction. In our interviews with amateur all work needs an audience. Certainly some of
camcorder users like Jacob and in interviews I did the projects in our study were private and
with several young men ages 11-18 who put their motivated by desires other than having an
amateur videos on YouTube, it became apparent
audience. For example, one participant said he
that their videomaking was as much about having a
keeps a video diary on his mobile phone and
laugh with a group of friends as it was producing
something to communicate with the wider world. watches it back privately. Another participant
made several narrative videos, based on Jaws and
Doctor Who, but did not share these videos with
 14

anyone. These videos involved numerous takes, and hes playing with his existing friends.
careful selection and creation of props and However, although this might be a less exciting
detailed planning to create a correct sense of and celebratory description of Jacobs practices,
scale (using toys in a fish tank as well as videos there are important things going on. We need
taken at the London Aquarium, for example). to be aware that Jacob has access to resources
Although he had the motivation to work that are scaffolding his learning, so looking at
through the production process, he had no digital natives we are bound to see digital
desire to share his products. The motivation divides, and we also need to see which concepts
came from the process rather than thinking he and skills are not being scaffolded and which
has a global audience with which to might be better addressed in formal educational
communicate. settings. Finally we need to value and make
room for the sometimes seemingly banal play
The picture I have tried to paint here through a that children do with digital technologies which
close look at Jacobs practices and other more might be serving important social functions in
ordinary users of digital technologies is perhaps their lives.
less exciting than the a picture of Jacob as a
digital native. Ive argued there are traditional
forms of learning going on, hes being a boy,
 15

SOPHIA, THE BIG COMPUTER AND OTHER STO RIES: LOOKING

BEYOND HOMOGENEITY IN YOUTHFUL DIGITAL LITERACIES
Ranjana Das, London School of Economics and Political Science

This last bit was called panel reflections, but Ill do it a do young people of different ages, and from
bit differently, for instead of a summary, Ill try to different contextual locations engage differently with
get in the voices of pre teens and teens like Sophia SNS, and what this can tell us about their literacies
and her peers into this room now, in the context of with a genre, but also the structure and complexities
all that has been said. These stories come from of the genre itself. Im not going to discuss the
ongoing fieldwork this autumn with 60 kids in broader project here but 3 points now from my
London and it continues literally at this moment, ongoing fieldwork.
tomorrow, at a school in Surrey.
Fittingly perhaps for the Silverstone Panel on digital
From digital natives, now to another contested term- natives, in these stories I pick up primarily the first
digital literacy. Digital literacy remains central to the point from Roger Silverstones emphasis* (1999)
idea of digital natives for implicit in both is that that literacies are capacities to decipher, appreciate,
homogenous, monolithic category of happy and criticise and compose. Three very prelim thoughts
excited youth, and in both we have that clear focus from ongoing fieldwork and I apologise for some of
on technology. these seem rather cynical points!

In following these children on a single theme - of 1. I seek to stress that first, these children
deciphering the media, I wish to make 3 points: 1) whose voices follow, are all technically
first, the delink between technical and critical competent with the genre of SNS. Yet
awareness in childrens digital literacies, 2) the they stumble, raising critical questions
outpacing of childrens intelligence and for both site design as well as adults
competencies by technical change and 3) the who are important in their lives.
heterogeneity of digital literacies as practices at the
intersection of contexts, competencies and design. 2. Second, I wish to stress again, that
these are technical experts. Yet, we shall
Digital literacy carries with it a baggage of doubts see how technology develops more
over whether at all we need a digital literacy, after rapidly than their knowledge of it does.
media literacy, whether we are too wedded to
technology in these kinds of conversations and an 3. Third, I stress on the point of
increasing recognition that computer skills of heterogeneity. Any focus on critical
pushing buttons and changing fonts is not equal to awareness must recognise the diversity
the wider, more critical concept of literacy. The very of contexts in which these play out, the
idea of digital literacy must necessarily be linked to conventions these children are aware of
an idea of legibility as Sonia Livingstones asserts and that it is the intersect of their
(this paper), getting back a focus on the design of contexts and technical expertise that
the interface itself or that literacies are not isolated deserves attention.
practical skills waiting to be graded, but practices
Contrast four childrens attempts to decipher the
within a societal/historical context. While much
ways in which online dangers play out on Facebook,
research speaks of heterogeneity in the larger
the geography of which all four know like the back
population as such, by age, adults, older citizens,
of their hands.
children, youth, young people, children often
inform our work as blanket terms and as David 11 year old Sophia comes from a working class
Buckingham tells us (this paper) are often exoticised. family where her parents are proud of their childs
expertise online, make her aware of bad things that
In this context, supported by POLIS and the Roger
might happen on commercial sites, but do not know
Silverstone Fellowship Fund at the LSE, this
the interface themselves.
autumn, I have been talking to pre teens and teens
across a very wide range of schools in London,
looking at difference and diversity in youthful
engagement with social networking sites. I ask- how
 16

Sophia: There are lots of pervs online. An old man Alison, a very quiet 14 year old girl from a
pretended to be a 16 year old girl and then met a Jamaican family, violent with her classmates, clearly
girl who met him on Facebook, took her to a field disturbed with something that she has encountered
and killed her. But I first add the people and then on Facebook, is unable to do anything but switch
get to know them and then delete them if they are off.
not fine.
Alison: What do you think of young people going
on Facebook all the time. You are researching it,
tell me..
IV: But why do you add someone you dont know?
Theyll get to know stuff from your profile by then, IV: I think, its uhmm interesting, you tell me..
right?
Alison: Its disgusting.

IV: What?
Sophia: No you cant write bad things ON
facebook, for they have a big computer. They will Alison: The disgusting people, sick people on there.
cancel your account if you are rude or a perv and I dont write a word. I dont let anyone tag me. Its
never let you go online again so disgusting, just disgusting.

Sophia, 11 Alison, 14

Adil, 15, who is better off than most of his peers, Following literacy scholars, if critical awareness
proudly displays his gadgets to his peers, logs on to means evaluations and assessment in place of faith
FB from his own Iphone, confident in sifting and assumptions, are these uncritical teens? All four
through junk to spot genuine friends. He insists that identify a problem online, all four have strategies to
be critical in their evaluations and practices and all
Adil: There are many ways to understand if four have failed in their attempts to resolve these
someone has a false profile. All I need to check is if problems. The first places all her trust in the name
their photos are professional. of Facebook, one decides to switch off from the
genre, one decides on a strategy of filtering photos
IV: Uhmm, professional? styles and another has been stalked online. As my
first point stressed, despite their best attempts to be
Adil: Like on google images go and type
critically aware, they stumble. Despite their
professional photos and you will see. If I see them
expertise with all things one could possible cluster
posing against the sun or displaying a lot of glossy
together as e-skills, despite their potentially high
skin I know they are fake.
scores on any imaginable e-skills assessment scale,
Adil, 15 they encounter awkward and knotty conventions
which punctuate their engagement with a digital
13 year old Alice, who attends an expensive private everyday life. Perhaps, a question there for both
school and has all imaginable luxuries she could media design and media education.
wish for, adds people to her list easily, for it is
considered uncool in her circle to have less than 300 Two more interesting stories, this time on my
friends. And then, second point, of how technological change
outpaces real technical expertise.
Alice: Once a man wrote to me saying I know you
live in West London. And I chatted to him till it Delia, 13, knows the precise settings of the privacy
got bad. I got scared. Then I figured I should have control button. She can group her friends into
known. countless categories and has spent one year in
figuring out how to get around Facebooks norms
IV: How? and conventions. In one of her online conversations
she has discussed good looks with her friends on
Well, his name was Edward Philips. That sounds their Facebook Walls, and then she discovers a
fake perhaps but how would I know... targetted advert when she logs on..
Alice, 13
 17

Delia: How does Facebook know if I need plastic

surgery? Im really offended at seeing this ad.
Notes
Delia, 13
See Livingstone, S. (2009). Children and the Internet:
She cannot imagine that her profile information Great Expectations, Challenging Realities. Cambridge:
feeds into the site itself to tailor make adverts for Polity.
her.
* As cited in Buckingham, D. (2003). Media
Mustafa, 16, a self confessed games addict, steadily education: Literacy, learning and contemporary
worked his way over the past year around the culture. London: Polity Press
commercial nature of Facebook by deleting any
adverts that cropped up without even looking at
them. This time, when he clicks on the delete button
on an ad, it turns out to be a report button, that
disrupts his work. He goes ahead to report the ad,
and then is stunend to find that another one crops
up. And then another. And then another. And then
he figures out that the button is essentially useless.
He masters the genre and its countless conventions
and then, in response, is deceived.

His peer the 13 yr old Lewis, at an independent

boys school, privileged in many ways in growing up
with high tech, tells me from the very outset that
things are weird. And creepy.

To stress my second point: these are technical

experts. Yet, we see how technology develops
more rapidly than their knowledge of it does.

Questioning the narrative of natives...

In conclusion, my real focus gets these together on

the point of heterogeneity. Any focus on
researching digital literacies as critical awareness
must recognise the diversity of contexts in which
these play out, the conventions these children are
aware of and that it is the intersect of their contexts
and technical expertise that deserves attention.

In this room today, nobody will disagree that

literacies are far from technical skills, or that they are
located in the contexts of everyday life, that they are
restrained and shaped, as Mustafa or Delia or Lewis
encouter, by what Sonia Livingstone aptly terms the
conditions of legibility (Livingstone, 2009). We see
how experts such as Sophia or Alison understand
the tasks at hand and yet stumble.

It is in emphasizing these three claims the

importance of the conditions of legibility, the huge
difference between technical natives and critical
participants, and the diversity and difference that
characterises this easy and homogenous monolithic
category called youth, that the narrative of digital
natives can be legitimately questioned.