Is There a Digital Generation

The title of this book reflects a kind of generational rhetoric that often characterises discussions of the use and impact of so-called ‘new’ media. Young people are frequently described as a ‘digital generation’, a generation defined in and through its experience of digital computer technology. This rhetoric can be found in popular commentary in fields as diverse as commerce, government, education and youth activism. Thus, the electronics company Panasonic is currently advertising its new ‘e.wear’ MP3 players as providing ‘digital music for a digital generation’; the US Department of Commerce speaks about ‘preparing the digital generation for the age of innovation’ (Mehlman, 2003); educationalist Seymour Papert (1996) writes of the ‘digital generation gap’ between parents and children; while the journalist J.D. Lasica (2002) seeks to defend young people from what he sees as ‘Hollywood’s war against the digital generation’. Elsewhere, we encounter ‘the Nintendo generation’ (Green and Bigum, 1993), ‘the Playstation generation’ (Blair, 2004) and the ‘net generation’ (Tapscott, 1998); as well as related constructions such as ‘cyberkids’ (Holloway and Valentine, 2003), ‘bionic children’ (Newsweek, 2003) and even ‘cyborg babies’ (Davis-Floyd and Dumit, 1998). Meanwhile in Japan, there has been considerable discussion of the ‘thumb generation’ – young people who have apparently developed a new dexterity in their thumbs as a result of their use of games consoles and mobile phones (Brooke, 2002).