Subject: Report by the Digital Youth Project released

We are happy to announce the online release of the findings from our
three-year Digital Youth project (http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu). All of the researchers who have worked on this project will be
writing up individual publications, but this report represents a
synthesis of the findings across the 22 different case studies. It has
been over three years in the making, and is the result of a truly
collaborative effort with 28 researchers and research collaborators.

This project is part of the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and
Learning initiative.
http://digitallearning.macfound.org.

You can find all the details in the documents linked below, and a
summary of our report below.

Two-page summary of report:


White paper:


Full report: http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report

Press release and video: http://digitallearning.macfound.org/ethnography



RESEARCH SUMMARY

Over three years, Mimi Ito and her 28-person research team interviewed
over 800 youth and young adults and conducted over 5000 hours of
online observations as part of the most extensive U.S. study of youth
media use to date.

They found that social network sites, online games, video-sharing
sites, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of
youth culture.  The research finds today's youth may be coming of age
and struggling for autonomy and identity amid new worlds for
communication, friendship, play, and self-expression.

Many adults worry that children are wasting time online, texting, or
playing video games.  The researchers explain why youth find these
activities compelling and important.  The digital world is creating
new opportunities for youth to grapple with social norms, explore
interests, develop technical skills, and experiment with new forms of
self-expression.
These activities have captured teens' attention because they provide
avenues for extending social worlds, self-directed learning, and
independence.

MAJOR FINDINGS

- Youth use online media to extend friendships and interests. -

Most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they
navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religious organizations,
sports, and other local activities. They can be always "on," in
constant contact with their friends through private communications
like instant messaging or mobile phones, as well as in public ways
through social network sitessuch as MySpace and Facebook.  With these
"friendship-driven" practices, youth are almost always associating
with people they already know in their offline lives. The majority of
youth use new media to "hang out" and extend existing friendships in
these ways.

A smaller number of youth also use the online world to explore
interests and find information that goes beyond what they have access
to at school or in their local community. Online groups enable youth
to connect to peers who share specialized and niche interests of
various kinds, whether that is online gaming, creative writing, video
editing, or other artistic