The Digital Divide: Writings for and Against Facebook, Youtube, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking

366 Pages·2011·5.81 MB·English

by  Mark Bauerlein

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EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY
Mark Bauerlein
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JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
New York
the
digital

divide
Arguments for and
Against Facebook, Google,
Texting, and the
Age of Social Networking
the
dig ital

div ide

EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY
Mark Bauerlein
>>>
JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
New York
JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2011 by Mark Bauerlein
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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 978-1-101-54679-6
1. Digital divide. 2. Technological innovations—Social aspects. 3. Social networks. I. Bauerlein,

Mark.

HM851.D524 2011 2011019688

303.48'33—dc23

Book design by Lucy Albanese
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.
contents

Introduction, Mark Bauerlein vii

section one: the brain, the senses
“Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” Marc Prensky 3

“Do They Really Think Differently?” Marc Prensky 12

“The Internet,” Steven Johnson 26

“Learning to Think in a Digital World,” Maryanne Wolf 34

“Learning Theory, Video Games, and Popular Culture,”

James Gee 38

“Usability of Websites for Teenagers,” Jakob Nielsen 44

“User Skills Improving, But Only Slightly,”

Jakob Nielsen 52

“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr 63

“Your Brain Is Evolving Right Now,” Gary Small and

Gigi Vorgan 76
section two: social life, personal life, school
“Identity Crisis,” Sherry Turkle 99

“They Call Me Cyberboy,” Douglas Rushkoff 112

“The People’s Net,” Douglas Rushkoff 116

“Social Currency,” Douglas Rushkoff 127

“The Eight Net Gen Norms,” Don Tapscott 130

“Love Online,” Henry Jenkins 160

“We Can’t Ignore the Influence of Digital Technologies,”

Cathy Davidson 166

“Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism,”
Christine Rosen 172

“Activists,” John Palfrey and Urs Gasser 189

section three: the fate of culture
“Nomadicity,” Todd Gitlin 207

“What Is Web 2.0,” Tim O’Reilly 215

“Web Squared,” Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle 230

“Web 2.0,” Andrew Keen 242

“Wikipedia and Beyond,” Katherine Mangu-Ward 250

“Judgment,” Maggie Jackson 271

“A Dream Come True,” Lee Siegel 295

“The End of Solitude,” William Deresiewicz 307

“Means,” Clay Shirky 318

Credits 335

Index 339
<Mark Bauerlein>
introduction

Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory Uni­
versity. 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 Quar­
terly, 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.
I
N 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 moth­
ers,” 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 commu­
nicate.
Within hours, it seemed, the article had exploded in op-eds,
blogs, and follow-up stories from The New Yorker to NPR to News­
week 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
viii introduction
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 to other journalists, and reader responses would have
amounted to several dozen letters to the editor, three of them
selected for publication in a later edition. By comparison, today’s
communication travels at light speed, and any edgy, comic, or other-
wise quirky story or video can “go viral.” Everybody can weigh in
and say almost anything they want.
What does it mean? How are we to understand the change—or,
perhaps more important, what is it that we are supposed to under­
stand? What stands out in this case is that sublime number on the
comments ledger: 6,901. It signifies the provocative nature of the
excerpt and a watchful, interactive audience. The process sounds
unequivocally positive, especially given the conditions the The Wall
Street Journal sets for comments. “Community Rules” disallow ano­
nymity, and “You must demonstrate appropriate respect” (no vul­
garity). Violators are banned. As a result, comments there are
thoughtful and critical.
Still, one has to wonder about the purpose of so many people
writing so many things about a 2,500-word newspaper piece. It’s a
new phenomenon, unique to the Digital Age, and it calls for exam­
ination. Some of the contributors to this volume would maintain
introduction ix
that this is democracy in action, meritoriously so. That ordinary
people have the chance to speak back and have their opinions pub­
lished at one of the nation’s leading newspapers can only enhance
civic life. Others, however, question what Journal readers think
when they encounter 4,383 comments to a news story and believe
that post #4,384 really matters. Is this democratic participation or
fruitless vanity?
The writings in this anthology address that and many other
questions. They present a range of judgments about the Digital
Age and digital tools and behaviors that have enveloped our wak­
ing hours. Indeed, whenever people consider the marvelous and
unprecedented ways that the Digital Age has transformed our
lives, they should keep that curious fact in mind. However sweeping
and abrupt the changes are, most individuals have absorbed them
with dispatch. The flood of digital tools was and is mighty and
abrupt, but adults and youths generally behave as if it has always
been thus. Calmly and expertly, they wield devices and form habits
that were inconceivable only ten or twenty years ago.
And it has happened so quickly. Cell phones, e-mail, the Web,
YouTube, and the rest have speeded up communications, shopping,
photographing, and studying, and they have also quickened the
conversion of each new and desirable invention into a regular part
of life. At a clip that would stun a pre-1980 person, novelties
promptly become customs. One or another of them may mark a
fabulous breakthrough, but they don’t stand out for long as striking
advances in the march of technology. Soon enough they settle into
one more utility, one more tool or practice in the mundane course
of job and leisure. How many decades passed between the invention
of the telephone and its daily use by 90 percent of the population?
Today, the path from private creation to pandemic consumption is
measured in months.
Consider the Facebook phenomenon. The network dates back to
2004, but seems to have been around forever. In six years it has