GoodWork Paper 61: New Digital Media, Social Institutions and the Changing Roles of Youth (PDF)

Author(s): Margaret Weigel, Katie Davis, Carrie James, Howard Gardner

Editor(s): Howard Gardner, Series Editor

Media: PDF

Description: This is the third of three GoodWork® papers in a series which explore issues relating to NDM, cognition and development. Together, these three papers provide a comprehensive perspective on cognition and social behaviors in relation to new digital media. In this paper we analyze the developing individual as she assumes the roles of student, consumer, producer and civic participant. Drawing upon existing literature and primary research from the Developing Minds and Digital Media, GoodPlay and Trust and Trustworthiness projects of the GoodWork® project at Project Zero, we focus on how new digital media (NDM) may be impacting these roles at different stages of development.

• As a student: The typical student‘s high fluency with technology may be further eroding the teacher‘s traditional position of authority, particularly as student employ NDM as a research tool and as a social portal in the classroom and while completing homework.
  
• As a consumer: Young consumers can access a wide variety of online goods and services to enhance their personal status and to explore multiple identities. However, new sites of Internet commerce with lax oversight may prove problematic for younger users who lack sophisticated assessment skills, mentoring, and an understanding of financial systems.
  
• As a producer: NDM offer the potential for informal learning and socializing online through mentor-driven practices based in affinity groups. Online engagement allows youth to bypass traditional content gatekeepers; in exchange they may have to learn how to express themselves effectively and how to deal with different audiences, including hostile or indifferent publics. Their work may be lost in a sea of Internet content, or perhaps even downloaded without their consent.
  
• As a civic participant: NDM allow youth new ways to participate in cultural, societal or political change; the affordances of NDM present a wealth of options that can foster online engagement. Typical youth, however, remain focused on other priorities; they may engage with civic content merely through consumption of entertaining or slanderous politically-themed messages that course through the Internet. Without robust assessment skills, youth may grow frustrated at the volume of conflicting partisan information.