It is unfortunate for the producers of PBS Frontline’s “Digital Nation” that the Kaiser Family Foundation’s landmark survey results were released last week. I say this largely because “Digital Nation,” a 90-minute documentary on digital media use in the United States which premiered last night, did not provide much in the way of new information. My main takeaway was that young people use a lot of media, but this is something I already knew (and I would venture a guess the typical PBS viewer knew it too). The KFF results support much of what I and many others have believed for a long time, but perform the additional service of indicating through metrics just how wide the digital divide can be, and how much that divide has grown within the last five years. As “Digital Nation” presented interviews with MIT students, scholars and die-hard World of Warcraft and Second Life players talking about heavy media use, I couldn’t help thinking that this was all redundant. I get it; people are wired all the time. But what does it mean?

When I learned that that PBS Frontline was making ”Digital Nation,” I expected to see something covering the nation. Instead, we mostly saw New York City, Cambridge, parts of California and South Korea. I understand that South Korea was held up as a foil to media use in the US, perhaps even as a cautionary tale of where we could be heading: Internet Rescue Camps and classrooms of second-graders chanting songs about netiquette. However, there are so many more regions in the US which deserved treatment; I would rather have gotten a look at, for example, the ways that digital media is impacting rural areas rather than spend time on Korea. Other American communities I wish were covered include those which are impoverished, undereducated, underemployed or multinational.

As for what was covered in “Digital Nation,” the film was divided into halves. It began with education and learning, which included the segment on South Korea and also spent time speaking with people studying the cognitive effects of new media on the brain. This is where we learned that young people use an awful lot of media, and in some ways it distracts them from their studies, but in other ways using media may make students more focused. The second half covered gaming, and looked at the online and offline communities created in multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, and also how Second Life can be used to fulfill both personal fantasies and business meeting needs. Following this was a look at gaming and the military, and covered the use of video games as treatment for soldiers with PTSD, but also at the use of predator drones in war zones, a practice which is eerily reminiscent of playing video games.

None of these topics should be left out of an examination of our digital nation, but to cover essentially only learning and gaming leaves out a lot. Working in media literacy, as I do, I was disappointed to not hear media literacy mentioned once. There was also no discussion of how digital media influence our democracy, consumer habits, economy, physical health or interpersonal relationships. Right now, major decisions are being made about broadband access, net neutrality and the limits of free speech on the Internet, but none of that was included either. In all fairness, this is a tall order for a 90-minute documentary, and I do think that “Digital Nation” might have been better served as a series. I admire the work of Rachel Dretzin and Douglas Rushkoff, and I am positive that they could have provided valuable insight on the complexities of a digital culture if they had more time. I agree with Cathy Davidson of HASTAC that this is a transitional documentary, and I wish it were more than that. Still, could have/should have/would have does very little good, so as it is, “Digital Nation” is valuable as a snapshot summary of a thin slice of living in a digital world. You will probably see some things in “Digital Nation” that look familiar, but you will not get a comprehensive look at our digital nation.

–Emily Long

I’ll spare you a recap of the entire article, but let’s think about this concept for a second, and what might happen if it were to be instituted.  It would be nearly impossible to enforce this law, since as they say, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog.  Credentials and identities can be easily faked, as with the fake Steve Jobs blog.  Libel and copyright lawsuits follow, of course, and free speech is ultimately somewhat inhibited as a result, but in the end the efforts by a government body to regulate who can post what on the Internet is nothing more than a silly attempt at policing our intelligence.

It is up to us, the people who read blogs and otherwise surf the Web for content, to question the reliability of what we find.  When you read a scholarly report, it is expected  and suggested that you look at the citations and assess the source for yourself.  When writing a paper of your own, you’re expected to assess your own sources.  Why should it be any different for something you find on the Internet?

Regulation of the Web is a tricky topic.  A conversation about free speech online easily turns to online child pornography and material that seems designed with malicious intent, such as instructions for how to make a bomb.  (For the curious, see the results of a Google search for “free speech online” which results in over 10 million hits, and you can join the debate.)  In the end, however, it is and always should be our responsibility to ask questions about the things we see and read both on the Internet and in the real world.  It’s up to us to determine reliability and perform our own “due diligence” before accepting anything as gospel.  Perhaps the efforts of Mikko and the EU Parliament would be better spent by investing in media literacy and the critical thinking skills that go with it.

With newspapers bearing headlines such as “Hooker Happy” and “Ho No!” being sold on every corner, lots of questions can come up in the mind of a kid. Ultimately, the most important thing is not to shun that conversation. Be an active listener. You don’t have to lie, but you don’t have to divulge every little detail if it’s not appropriate. Try to think of times like these as opportunities to get to know your son or daughter better, and to engage their sense of right and wrong.

For a great resource about talking with your kids about the news (and other things), check out PBS’s Talking With Kids series.

For examples of how some families discussed the Spitzer scandal, read this brief article from the New York Times.

Without being preachy, they got across the message that parents need to try to see this world from their kids’ point of view and not rush to judgment and action out of fear alone.

• One of the parents who was featured was too intent on acting out of fear and ended up alienating her children.
• Other featured parents were more open about how their children used the Internet, and, though filled with anxiety, were more open-minded.  In the end they (with the exception of one family whose child, sadly, committed suicide) had much more healthy relationships with their kids.

The one critique I have is that the doc featured suburban kids for the most part.  I would love to have seen the inclusion of inner city, even rural, families featured.  Teens in those environments have different stresses and different issues to deal with everyday.  These include poverty, lack of parental guidance in some instances, violence and lack of substantive activities and/or support at home and at school. Their relationships with, and use of, the Internet might differ as a result.

Realistically, I know that PBS was offering programming to their base viewership.  As a result, the program was targeted at that group.

We invite you to go to the PBS site and watch and comment on the program  All of the issues included in “Growing Up Online,” including social networking, cyberbullying, loss of privacy, online predators, identity creation and the like are worthy of much more open discussion by parents, teachers and other adults WITH kids.

I applaud the beginning of the conversation that this documentary offers.  We at the LAMP can continue the conversation here in the neighborhoods of Brooklyn.

Thanks for checking in,

Katherine Fry

Education Director, The LAMP

“At Chatham High School, Michael LaSusa, a co-principal, concedes that the classroom must compete with the flash of cyberspace.

“We have to be interactive because they’re accustomed to sitting in front of a screen and they’ve got five windows up and they’re talking to three people at the same time,” Mr. LaSusa says. “

How many of us have seen this same thing with kids maintaining multiple conversations? It’s an excellent point on how we educate our youth really needs to evolve by not only incorporating the different media they interact with but also the methods these media use to engage them.

Tune in tonight.

It airs on Tuesday, January 22 at 9pm EST on PBS (channel 13 here in New York).  If you can’t catch it then, no need to set your VCR or TiVo–you can stream the entire episode online.