ABSTRACT
The manner in which contemporary young people live requires a thorough analysis of one of the most significant aspects of their lives – digital technology. We argue that this kind of analysis is absent in much contemporary youth studies. Moreover, young people themselves are not often offered a critical space in which to ponder or speak about technology and their experiences of it. When they are spoken to about the matter, the questions posed are simplistic or aim to whitewash technology. Most of what has been written in youth studies about young people and technology is without nuance and critical reflection. In the social sciences more generally, research has tended to document trends in digital media access, map growth in user rates, and, more apologetically, argue in favour of technology’s ability to liberate and save youth and public education. But, the stakes of digital technology are much higher than this for youth and society. Counter-stories are needed beyond tracking the numbers of hours spent gaming and exploring whether Facebook friends are real or not. Another familiar but outmoded narrative is the digital divide, which is used in a disapprobative sense to describe the haves and have-nots in the technological sweepstakes (UN, 2015; Looker and Thiessen, 2003). And it is the usual suspects who find themselves on the losing side of the divide: the impoverished, Aboriginals, rural youth, and the “developing” world. Given the near ubiquity of digital and social media in the lives of North American and European young people (UN, 2015), the narrative strikes us as dated and assumes that being among the haves – having a good life, having access to technology – are understood to be roughly equivalent. Our research tells us that these assumptions must be called into question. Advanced technological societies are indeed richer and more powerful than their less technological counterparts around the world. But they do not necessarily “live better” than those counterparts, unless wealth and power are taken to be the sole measures of living better. And the same is true for Western young people who are tech-savvy and wealthy, but not necessarily happier. If we want truly to understand the meaning and consequences for youth of the modern digital age, we must explore the lives of young people and the economic, scientific, and utopian aspirations of the technological world they inhabit.
