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Hanging Out, Messing Around, And Geeking Out: Kids Living And Learning With New Media (2009)

by Mizuko Ito(Favorite Author)

3.8 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0262013363 (ISBN13: 9780262013369)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

The MIT Press

review 1: This one's a little outside my usual range-- essentially, a collection of papers drawn from the metaanalysis of another group of papers about the way teens use technology to mediate their social and work lives. Or something like that. I think the basic field here is education theory, with a dash of anthropology and sociology.At any rate, it is a really striking exploration of how teens actually use technology, and looks at the phenomena from a variety of areas: relationships, family, work, creative fulfillment, etc. And it comes with it's own striking heuristic, expressed in the title: in essence, there are three levels of engagement with technology, and across different social and geographic groups, you can find commonalities based on what level of immersion the teens sho... morew.It's a smart and witty book, and the deep quotes the writers bring shows they did a ton of listening and original research. It's got a lot to say, and really challenges me in terms of the way I use technology and the way I present myself in the classroom.I did think the chapter on "Families" didn't fit as well with the others; it was interesting on its own, but spent a lot of time exploring access to technology, which seemed like an issue that wasn't quite germane to the topics of the rest of the book, which were focused on how those technologies are used. The two areas overlap, of course, but the chapter felt really limited in comparison to the others.
review 2: This book--different sections of it written by different "lead" writers and teams of writers--is really valuable if you want to understand the many ways young people use new media. Most of the case studies are written about young people and sometimes their families in California. And many of the researchers are from UC Berkeley. The writing is clear, vivid, and easy to read while also treating each topic (media ecologies, intimacies, families, etc.) with plenty of depth using both secondary and primary resources. The case studies are great and models of how to write this particular genre. It's about more than facebook! And it also explores questions about class, religious background, and level of education and how that affects access and facility with new media. less

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