Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media: A Synthesis From the Good Play Project

198 Pages·1.498 MB·English

by  Carrie James

Disconnected
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital
Media and Learning
Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software, by Mizuko Ito
Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Me-
dia, by Mizuko Ito, Sonja Baumer, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Rachel Cody, Becky
Herr-Stephenson, Heather A. Horst, Patricia G. Lange, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka
Martínez, C. J. Pascoe, Dan Perkel, Laura Robinson, Christo Sims, and Lisa Tripp,
with contributions by Judd Antin, Megan Finn, Arthur Law, Annie Manion, Sarai
Mitnick, David Schlossberg, and Sarita Yardi
The Civic Web: Young People, the Internet, and Civic Participation, by Shakuntala Banaji
and David Buckingham
Connected Play: Tweens in a Virtual World, by Yasmin B. Kafai and Deborah A. Fields
The Digital Youth Network: Cultivating New Media Citizenship in Urban Communities,
edited by Brigid Barron, Kimberley Gomez, Nichole Pinkard, and Caitlin K. Martin
Connected Code: Children as the Programmers, Designers, and Makers for the 21st Century,
by Yasmin B. Kafai and Quinn Burke
Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap, by Carrie James
The Interconnections Collection: Understanding Systems through Digital Design,
developed by Kylie Peppler, Melissa Gresalfi, Katie Salen Tekinbaş, and Rafi Santo
Gaming the System: Designing with Gamestar Mechanic, by Katie Salen Tekinbaş, Me-
lissa Gresalfi, Kylie Peppler, and Rafi Santo
Script Changers: Digital Storytelling with Scratch, by Kylie Peppler, Rafi Santo, Melissa
Gresalfi, and Katie Salen Tekinbaş
Short Circuits: Crafting E-Puppets with DIY Electronics, by Kylie Peppler, Katie Salen
Tekinbaş, Melissa Gresalfi, and Rafi Santo
Soft Circuits: Crafting E-Fashion with DIY Electronics, by Kylie Peppler, Melissa Gresalfi,
Katie Salen Tekinbaş, and Rafi Santo
Inaugural Series Volumes
Six edited volumes were created through an interactive community review process
and published online and in print in December 2007. They are the precursors to
the peer-reviewed monographs in the series. For more information on these vol-
umes, visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/series/john-d-and-catherine-t-macarthur
-foundation-series-digital-media-and-learning.
Disconnected
Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap
Carrie James
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
James, Carrie.
Disconnected : youth, new media, and the ethics gap / Carrie James.
pages cm — (The John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation series on digi-
tal media and learning)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-02806-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Internet and youth. 2. Internet—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Parental influ-
ences. I. Title.
HQ799.9.I58J36 2014
004.67′80835—dc23
2014003873

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Ella and Talia, my young digital citizens

Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this-and-that.
—Neil Postman1
Technology celebrates connectedness but encourages retreat.… The flow of water
carves rock, a little bit at a time. And our personhood is carved, too, by the flow of
our habits.… The more distracted we become, and the more emphasis we place on
speed at the expense of depth, the less likely and able we are to care.
We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved
time along with it or makes the saved time less present, intimate, and rich. I worry
that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the farther it gets from our hearts. It’s
not an either/or—being “anti-technology” is perhaps the only thing more foolish
than being unquestioningly “pro-technology”—but a question of balance that our
lives hang upon.
—Jonathan Safran Foer2

Contents
Series Foreword xi
Foreword by Henry Jenkins xiii
Acknowledgments xxvii
1 Morality, Ethics, and Digital Life 1
2 Privacy 23
3 Property 47
4 Participation 73
5 Correcting the Blind Spots, Reconnecting the Disconnects 101
Appendix: About the Research 123
Notes 131
Index 161