The Digital Divide- Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking

314 Pages·2011·1.4 MB·English

by  Bauerlein Mark

Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction

section one - the brain, the senses
digital natives, digital immigrants
do they really think differently?
the internet
learning to think in a digital world
learning theory, video games, and popular culture
usability of websites for teenagers
user skills improving, but only slightly
is google making us stupid?
your brain is evolving right now

section two - social life, personal life, school
identity crisis
they call me cyberboy
the people’s net
social currency
the eight net gen norms
love online
we can’t ignore the influence of digital technologies
virtual friendship and the new narcissism
activists

section three - the fate of culture
nomadicity
what is web 2.0: design patterns and business models for the next generation of
software
web squared: web 2.0 five years on
web 2.0: the second generation of the internet has arrived and it’s worse than ...
wikipedia and beyond: jimmy wales’s sprawling vision
judgment: of molly’s gaze and taylor’s watch - why more is less in a ...
a dream come true
the end of solitude
means

credits
index
Arguments for and
Against Facebook, Google,
Texting, and the
Age of Social Networking
JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN
Published by the Penguin Group
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2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2011 by Mark Bauerlein
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The digital divide: arguments for and against Facebook, Google, texting, and the age of social
networking/edited and introduced by Mark Bauerlein.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN : 978-1-10154752-6
1. Digital divide. 2. Technological innovations—Social aspects. 3. Social networks. I. Bauerlein, Mark.
HM851.D524 2011
2011019688
303.48’33—dc23
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the
time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for
changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not
assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
http://us.penguingroup.com
< Mark Bauerlein >
introduction
MARK BAUERLEIN is a professor of English at Emory University.
His books include Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (1997) and
Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906 (2001). His essays have
appeared in PMLA, Partisan Review, Wilson Quarterly , and Yale
Review, and his commentaries and reviews have appeared in The Wall
Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, Reason
magazine, and elsewhere. More information can be found at
www.dumbestgeneration.com.
IN EARLY 2011, The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt from a book
called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a treatise on the superiority of “Chinese
mothers” over “Western mothers,” written by Yale law professor Amy Chua.
The book excerpt was clearly intended to court controversy, but the exact way
that that controversy played out illustrated well the new ways we communicate.
Within hours, it seemed, the article had exploded in op-eds, blogs, and follow-
up stories from The New Yorker to NPR to Newsweek to angryasianman.com,
with reactions ranging from enraged to regretful to cheering. The author’s eldest
daughter defended her mother in an effusive testimonial in the New York Post. I
just Googled “Amy Chua” and 544,000 results came up. Most amazing of all,
perhaps, was the response of readers—not the content, but the quantity. At the
present moment, fully 6,901 comments have piled up on the website beneath the
excerpt. And of course, as all this unfolded, the hardcover edition of Tiger
Mother climbed to #4 on Amazon. The book had only been available for a week.
For all the hoopla, however, we may be certain that in a few more days,
attention will shift elsewhere to other affairs. That’s the pace of news in the
digital era. The ups and downs of current events run steeper and faster, as if a
roller coaster were squeezed into a smaller space. Ballyhooed controversies
happened before the Web came along, but they didn’t arise, expand, and deflate
so quickly and voluminously, and with so many participants in the process. In
the days of print-only, the excerpt would have taken days or weeks to circulate