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Book Review: The App Generation
First time accepted submitter Sara Konrath writes "The App Generation gives an overview of how digital media and technology may affect young people's perceptions of themselves, their ability to relate to others, and their creativity. As the director of the Interdisciplinary Program on Empathy and Altruism Research (iPEAR), my research finds that there have been generational changes in personality traits related to social functioning. For example, we find that narcissism has been rising while dispositional empathy has been declining in recent generations. I also study the relationship between such traits and the use of social media. Considering this, I was excited to get a copy of the book ahead of its release date." Keep reading for the rest of Sara's review.
The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World
author
Howard Gardner, Katie Davis
pages
256
publisher
Yale University Press
rating
7/10
reviewer
Sara Konrath
ISBN
978-0300196214
summary
How life for this generation differs from life before the digital era.
The book does a good job of outlining the latest research on the topic of how digital technology and media have changed fundamental aspects of the way young people relate to themselves and others. Considering that the authors are academics, I commend them for adopting an everyday conversational style, although at times this comes across as awkward. The book title is not quite right, since it's really about the broader topic of how new technology and media affect us, unfortunately forcing the authors to squeeze in the app metaphor whenever possible to make the title work. The larger point of the book is that it is easy to become "app-dependent," allowing ourselves to be controlled and limited by technology, rather than "app-enabled," using it to reach our highest potential selves – to creativity connect and engage with ideas and other people. The historical examples from other times of technological change are amusing, and provide an interesting context for their discussion.
Howard and Katie (as they call themselves in the book) argue that the new media landscape indeed affects the way young people see themselves, or at least present themselves – what they call identity. In the early days of the internet, there was a feeling that one could go online and be someone else. With chat rooms and multiplayer role play games (and their customizable avatars), the internet allowed people to safely play with their identities and perhaps discover new aspects of themselves. Sherry Turkle, covered this topic quite early (1995) in her book, Life on the Screen: Identity in the age of the internet, and The App Generation gives her an appreciative nod. But the authors suggest that although this type of identity play still occurs, it is more common for young people to use social media to be "themselves, only better," considering that social networking sites often use people's real names.
In terms of intimacy, Howard and Katie cite much research (including my own) finding that young people today may have more difficulty deeply connecting with others than those in past generations. The authors suggest that new media might be in part to blame for such changes in social interactions. Again, a book by Sherry Turkle (Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other) has both preceded them and gone into more satisfying depth on the topic. The problem Howard and Katie acknowledge is that it is hard to conduct experimental studies, the gold standard for making causal claims. Yet I wish the authors would have discussed the vast amount of research on the effects of other media (e.g. television, violent video games), which has grappled with these problems for decades and has come up with some solutions.
The most novel and interesting part of the book, which alone makes it worth reading, is the chapter on creativity (which they self-consciously label imagination, in order to have three neat "Is" in the subtitle). This chapter is refreshingly different from the others, partly because the authors draw on their own research expertise here, rather than simply providing a cursory review of others' work. But here again, the discussion is too brief and superficial, as if the book is intended to be read on a screen. Still, I was intrigued by their finding that while the visual art of young people seems to be increasing in creativity and complexity in recent years, their written work shows marked declines in the same domains. This reminded me of Leonard Shlain's book, The Alphabet versus the Goddess, which posited that there would be a rise in the dominance visual images (which he sees as signifying feminine preeminence) over the written word (signifying masculine hierarchical systems of power).
Overall, The App Generation seems to be packaged directly to the "app generation," in its tendency to skim across facts rather than using them as a starting point for further analysis. But despite my criticisms, I still enjoyed reading it and it made me think more about how such technologies could be designed to help enhance social relationships rather than diminish them. My criticisms come partly from my experience studying this topic, and what seems like a criticism could actually be a strength for more novice readers. The book accurately gives an overview of scientific research on this topic, and with all of the electronic research tools available in recent years, it is up to the reader to "google it" if they want to go deeper.
You can purchase The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews (sci-fi included) -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Howard and Katie (as they call themselves in the book) argue that the new media landscape indeed affects the way young people see themselves, or at least present themselves – what they call identity. In the early days of the internet, there was a feeling that one could go online and be someone else. With chat rooms and multiplayer role play games (and their customizable avatars), the internet allowed people to safely play with their identities and perhaps discover new aspects of themselves. Sherry Turkle, covered this topic quite early (1995) in her book, Life on the Screen: Identity in the age of the internet, and The App Generation gives her an appreciative nod. But the authors suggest that although this type of identity play still occurs, it is more common for young people to use social media to be "themselves, only better," considering that social networking sites often use people's real names.
In terms of intimacy, Howard and Katie cite much research (including my own) finding that young people today may have more difficulty deeply connecting with others than those in past generations. The authors suggest that new media might be in part to blame for such changes in social interactions. Again, a book by Sherry Turkle (Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other) has both preceded them and gone into more satisfying depth on the topic. The problem Howard and Katie acknowledge is that it is hard to conduct experimental studies, the gold standard for making causal claims. Yet I wish the authors would have discussed the vast amount of research on the effects of other media (e.g. television, violent video games), which has grappled with these problems for decades and has come up with some solutions.
The most novel and interesting part of the book, which alone makes it worth reading, is the chapter on creativity (which they self-consciously label imagination, in order to have three neat "Is" in the subtitle). This chapter is refreshingly different from the others, partly because the authors draw on their own research expertise here, rather than simply providing a cursory review of others' work. But here again, the discussion is too brief and superficial, as if the book is intended to be read on a screen. Still, I was intrigued by their finding that while the visual art of young people seems to be increasing in creativity and complexity in recent years, their written work shows marked declines in the same domains. This reminded me of Leonard Shlain's book, The Alphabet versus the Goddess, which posited that there would be a rise in the dominance visual images (which he sees as signifying feminine preeminence) over the written word (signifying masculine hierarchical systems of power).
Overall, The App Generation seems to be packaged directly to the "app generation," in its tendency to skim across facts rather than using them as a starting point for further analysis. But despite my criticisms, I still enjoyed reading it and it made me think more about how such technologies could be designed to help enhance social relationships rather than diminish them. My criticisms come partly from my experience studying this topic, and what seems like a criticism could actually be a strength for more novice readers. The book accurately gives an overview of scientific research on this topic, and with all of the electronic research tools available in recent years, it is up to the reader to "google it" if they want to go deeper.
You can purchase The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews (sci-fi included) -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
We'll see how well those selfish snot-nosed punks do after mommy and daddy kick them the hell out of the house. They are selfish and complacent because their parents enable them to be.
-- Ethanol-fueled
a rise in the dominance visual images (which he sees as signifying feminine preeminence) over the written word (signifying masculine hierarchical systems of power)
Huh?
Erm... what?
News anchor voice from Starship Troopers: Would you like to know more?
Yes?
Shlain contrasts the feminine right-brained oral teachings of Socrates, Buddha, and Jesus with the masculine creeds that evolved when their spoken words were committed to writing. The first book written in an alphabet was the Old Testament and its most important passage was the Ten Commandments. The first two reject of any goddess influence and ban any form of representative art. (www.alphabetvsgoddess.com)
Uhh.. huh. So what you've done there is you took 3 male teachers, presumed their teachings to be somehow feminine, and then completely and utterly misunderstood the evolution of the Abrahamaic religions and their conquest of "pagan" and "heathen" traditions.
Furthermore, you've decided to ascribe gender two complimentary media and create some male vs. female, testosterone vs. estrogen, rapist vs. rape victim conflict where none need exist.
Agh. Is it just me or do folks who aren't trans have a very tenuous (at best) grasp of gender? At any rate, this tells us more about the way cisgendered folks (folks who aren't transgendered) identify with the phenomenon of gender than it tells us about gender itself, and that is the startling point here. Apparently, if one is cisgendered, the matching gender of one's mind and reproductive system conspires to weld the idea of gender so inextricibly to the experience of existing or being that one then neurotically seeks to paint every last thing in the world with gender!
Well, now it all makes sense. This is how mathematics can be rape. Even written language itself is rape! Sad news for our feminists who want more womyn-born-womyn in computer careers!
What on earth is even the basis for this idea that written language is somehow masculine and artistic rendering is somehow feminine beyond some historical coincidences? This idea is just such an utter jumble now that I think about it more, I can't decide whether the case being made here is that all progress that separates human beings from every other animal on the face of the planet is not something that women have participated in and is the antithesis of an entire gender!
How confusing. In our attempts to preserve the stereotypical innocence of womyn-born-womyn, we seem to have unintentionally written off femininity as irrelevant and unable to handle the rigors of continuing to evolve to something other than mere talking animals, no differently than the old misogynists we're supposed to revile!
Anybody who buys into this crap should spend a year or two working in a nearly all female environment like a call center. The idea that the female nature is this essence of placid innocence is just... so utterly naive as to cease being cute and become insidious now that we've decided that careers are for both genders. At least when boys grow up and become men, they learn that they need to put aside their pettiness and work together. Nobody seems to be interested in teaching this skill to womyn-born-womyn, presuming them not individuals capable of greed, jealousy, vexation, and destruction, but somehow "better" or more "pure" than anyone without the status of being a womyn-born-womyn.
Did anyone ever think that the problem with the kids is that the older generation has infested academia with these kinds of superficial philosophies of anti-individualism and collectivism?
Maybe that's why the kids are retreating to their iApps. Day after day we drill it into their heads that all men are evil rapists and all women are helpless victims, a notion as old as the hills but treble reinforced by feminism and worthless gender philosophies and handed do
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