Review: Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation

For those familiar with Don Tapscott's other books, Growing up Digital is but a variation on a common theme. This time the proof for Tapscott's claims of a digital revolution of epochal significance is found through a study of users which he calls the N­generation. These are those who are growing up with interactive digital media, particularly the Internet. Characteristically, this generation is growing up with computers, assimilating technology and seeing it as a playful prosthetic device - an extension of themselves in contrast to the perceptions of their parents, who have had to accommodate and therefore struggle to learn it (p. 40). This cohort 'look at computers the same way boomers look at TV' - as a generationally defining technology. From the start. we are informed that Growing up Digital is 'written on the Internet' (p. ix). It involved a research team which 'collaborated with several hundred children and adults'. We also learn that 'analysis drafting and editing was conducted by a core team in five locations using a shared digital workspace, electronic mail and computer conferencing'. Both the content and how it is produced mirror each other. This research statement (which is strategically positioned in the front section of the book on p. ix) draws attention to the book's exemplary status as not only a digitally savvy book, but also a digitally generated one.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Humanities, Languages and Social SciencesFull Tex