Jacqueline Ryan Vickery - Worried About the Wrong Things: Youth, Risk, and Opportunity in the Digital World

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning

Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth, ed. W. Lance Bennett

Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility, ed. Miriam J. Metzger and Andrew J. Flanagin

Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected, ed. Tara McPherson

The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning, ed. Katie Salen

Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media, ed. Anna Everett

Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, ed. David Buckingham

Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Childrens Software, by Mizuko Ito

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media, by Mizuko Ito et al.

The Civic Web: Young People, the Internet, and Civic Participation, by Shakuntala Banaji and David Buckingham

Connected Play: Tweens in a Virtual World, by Yasmin B. Kafai and Deborah A. Fields

The Digital Youth Network: Cultivating Digital Media Citizenship in Urban Communities, ed. Brigid Barron, Kimberley Gomez, Nichole Pinkard, and Caitlin K. Martin

The Interconnections Collection, developed by Kylie Peppler, Melissa Gresalfi, Katie Salen Tekinba, and Rafi Santo

Gaming the System: Designing with Gamestar Mechanic, by Katie Salen Tekinba, Melissa Gresalfi, Kylie Peppler, and Rafi Santo

Script Changers: Digital Storytelling with Scratch, by Kylie Peppler, Rafi Santo, Melissa Gresalfi, and Katie Salen Tekinba

Short Circuits: Crafting E-Puppets with DIY Electronics, by Kylie Peppler, Katie Salen Tekinba, Melissa Gresalfi, and Rafi Santo

Soft Circuits: Crafting E-Fashion with DIY Electronics, by Kylie Peppler, Melissa Gresalfi, Katie Salen Tekinba, and Rafi Santo

Connected Code: Children as the Programmers, Designers, and Makers for the 21st Century, by Yasmin B. Kafai and Quinn Burke

Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap, by Carrie James

Education and Social Media: Toward a Digital Future, ed. Christine Greenhow, Julia Sonnevend, and Colin Agur

Framing Internet Safety: The Governance of Youth Online, by Nathan W. Fisk

Connected Gaming: What Making Video Games Can Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, by Yasmin B. Kafai and Quinn Burke

Giving Voice: Mobile Communication, Disability, and Inequality, by Meryl Alper

Worried About the Wrong Things: Youth, Risk, and Opportunity in the Digital World, by Jacqueline Ryan Vickery

Jacqueline Ryan Vickery

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

2017 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

Set in ITC Stone Sans Std and ITC Stone Serif Std by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vickery, Jacqueline Ryan, author.

Title: Worried about the wrong things : youth, risk, and opportunity in the digital world / Jacqueline Ryan Vickery ; foreword by S. Craig Watkins.

Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 2017. | Series: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation series on digital media and learning | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016038045 | ISBN 9780262036023 (hardcover : alk. paper)

eISBN 9780262339322

Subjects: LCSH: Information society--United States. | Digital media--Social aspects--United States. | Information technology--Social aspects--United States. | Internet and teenagers--United States. | Internet--Safety measures. | Internet--Security measures.

Classification: LCC HM851 .V527 2017 | DDC 303.48/33--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016038045

ePub Version 1.0

for Mom and DadThanks for believing that a silly story about a bunny could lead to bigger dreams.

In recent years, digital media and networks have become embedded in our everyday lives and are part of broad-based changes to how we engage in knowledge production, communication, and creative expression. Unlike the early years in the development of computers and computer-based media, digital media are now commonplace and pervasive, having been taken up by a wide range of individuals and institutions in all walks of life. Digital media have escaped the boundaries of professional and formal practice, and of the academic, governmental, and industry homes that initially fostered their development. Now they have been taken up by diverse populations and non-institutionalized practices, including the peer activities of youth. Although specific forms of technology uptake are highly diverse, a generation is growing up in an era when digital media are part of the taken-for-granted social and cultural fabric of learning, play, and social communication.

This book series is founded upon the working hypothesis that those immersed in new digital tools and networks are engaged in an unprecedented exploration of language, games, social interaction, problem solving, and self-directed activity that leads to diverse forms of learning. These diverse forms of learning are reflected in expressions of identity, in how individuals express independence and creativity, and in their ability to learn, exercise judgment, and think systematically.

The defining frame for this series is not a particular theoretical or disciplinary approach, nor is it a fixed set of topics. Rather, the series revolves around a constellation of topics investigated from multiple disciplinary and practical frames. The series as a whole looks at the relation between youth, learning, and digital media, but each contribution to the series might deal with only a subset of this constellation. Erecting strict topical boundaries would exclude some of the most important work in the field. For example, restricting the content of the series only to people of a certain age would mean artificially reifying an age boundary when the phenomenon demands otherwise. This would become particularly problematic with new forms of online participation where one important outcome is the mixing of participants of different ages. The same goes for digital media, which are increasingly inseparable from analog and earlier media forms.

The series responds to certain changes in our media ecology that have important implications for learning. Specifically, these changes involve new forms of media literacy and developments in the modes of media participation. Digital media are part of a convergence between interactive media (most notably gaming), online networks, and existing media forms. Navigating this media ecology involves a palette of literacies that are being defined through practice but require more scholarly scrutiny before they can be fully incorporated pervasively into educational initiatives. Media literacy involves not only ways of understanding, interpreting, and critiquing media, but also the means for creative and social expression, online search and navigation, and a host of new technical skills. The potential gap in literacies and participation skills creates new challenges for educators who struggle to bridge media engagement inside and outside the classroom.