Aaliayh's Respondent Post to "Living and Learning with Digital Media"

In the summary of the white paper “Living and Learning in digital media...” the researchers look at the way that young people are interacting with digital tools and how technology is becoming a bigger part of growing up for young and how it is an extension of their education.

The part that I found interesting was the division of participation among youth into three different categories: messing around , geeking out, and hanging out. New Media is definitely changing the way that people interact and younger groups are finding new ways to use the technology to their advantage it is creating an environment where children are teaching adults how to use New Media to interact with their peers. Increasingly, teenagers are using New Media as a way of enhancing “hanging out” with their friends by coming together to create projects that they may post online. Teenagers go to their friends houses and often use New Media tools to interact with other friends and express themselves with the media via Youtube, Myspace and Facebook.

It extends far past gaming, to a point where teens interact not only offline but online as well and they use the media to create both an online and offline identity. The online and offline identity seems to becoming one instead of two different things. It seems that the lines of friendship are also shifting. Online tools continue to enhance personal friendships but it also closes the gaps between superficial relationships and forces us to make a connection to others even if it is just friending someone on Facebook.

I hope that this increased interaction of youth online will lead teenagers and growing children to adapt a more global perspective because New Media has the potential to connect different communities across different countries. New Media opens up possibilities of uniting different groups against a common foe or to fight for a cause. I think about the Harry Potter communities coming together to fight against movie studios. Using New Media as a form of education is a problem adults have to learn to accept and use the tools to their advantage because youth are becoming more and more New Media savvy.

Documentary "Growing Up Online"