Living and Learning with New Media
Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project
digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu
www.digitallearning.macfound.org/ethonography
Over three years, University of California, Irvine researcher Mizuko Ito and her team interviewed over 800 youth and young adults and conducted over 5000 hours of online observations as part of the most extensive U.S. study of youth media use. They found that social network and video-sharing sites, online games , and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of youth culture. The research shows that today’s youth may be coming of age and struggling for autonomy and identity amid new worlds for communication, friendship, play, and self expression.