Welcome

June 1, 2009 on 4:29 am | In Book | 10 Comments

Welcome to theyoungandthedigital.com, the companion website to the book The Young and The Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. The goal of this site is simple: to continue the exploration of young people’s enthusiastic embrace of digital media. This site, like the book, anticipates many of the conversations and controversies that drive the debates about the growing role of digital media in our daily lives.

“Bracing yet reassuring, often surprising, and always substantive, Craig Watkins acts as an honest broker, testing the contradictory claims often made about young people’s digital lives against sophisticated field work.”
–Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

“With thorough research, deep thinking, and lively prose, Watkins adds enormously to our understanding of how the combination of new media and a new generation is changing the world. Read this refreshing book to understand our future!”
– Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics and author of Grown Up Digital

One of the more enduring lessons I learned from my research is that digital and mobile media behaviors are constantly changing. In a short period of time young people have moved from Email, to AIM, to texting, then Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook. As a result, research and analysis has to be both knowledgeable and flexible. The research team that I have assembled continues to rigorously study and keep our pulse on the digital world. We look forward to sharing some of our findings, analysis, and papers from our research with you.