Digital Youth

1
Digital Youth

• Remarks
• T.J.M. Holden

2
Panel 3 Digital Difference

• Sunday, June 22nd
• 1300 - 1430 p.m.
• Thinking through
• Difference

3
About Me, On this Panel

• Originally I was asked by the organizers to
  present something at this conference, but . . .
• That was kind of like asking Ringo to do a drum
  solo.
• Imagine David Slater as Paul here
• you know, Ringo . . .you could go -- da-dupe,
  ba-dupe, da-dupe
• (Believe me, no one would be duped by that)

4
About Me, On this Panel

• Anyway . . . once it became clear that I had
  nothing to offer, the organizers said
• well, hey . . . Theres always commentary . . .
  
• Which is why I sit before you in the role of
  commentator
• Soon it should be abundantly clear that they
  might have been better off with Ringo as a
  commentator
• But, its too late to rescind the offer
• And besides, this shouldnt take longer than your
  average Led Zeppelin drum solo

5
About Me, On this Panel

• I come to this panel with a number of
  intellectual caps
• Communication researcher
• Social theorist
• Mediated sociologist
• My work is primarily situated in Japan, although
  I also have looked at other Asian countries, such
  as Malaysia, and Asia in general
• Mostly in relation to matters of contextualized
  globalization
• In these comments I will try to don these various
  caps

6
About Me, On this Panel

• My claim to inclusion, perhaps, was a chapter in
  a book on Global Youth Culture (2007)
• There I presented an ethnography of youth cell
  phone use in Japan
• I dubbed these users adolechnics
• Users with clearly distinguished differences from
  other mobile phone users in Japan
• and presented the multiple ways that keitai
  worked to mediate identity
• Mobile phones served to nurture and advance their
  difference

7
Adolechnics 4 Levels of globality

• In concluding, I theorized 4 levels of youth
  mobile phone use vis-à-vis globalization
• The Macro-Global
• The Global-Local
• The Micro-Global
• The Micro-Local

8
The Macro-Global

• keitai simultaneously connects adolechnics to
  larger social, political, economic and moral
  worlds
• above all
• the consumer-capitalist economy, and
• the popular cultural realm.

9
The Global-Local

• While adolechnics actively engage in consumption
  via mobile phones . . .
• they consume without being overly consumed with
  the idea of consuming.
• They share the joy of consumption
• with mutually linked, though independent,
  consumers
• All engaged in identical acts of consumption.

10
The Micro-Global

• Adolechnics devote considerable time teaching one
  another
• how to belong to their groups
• what it means to be a young adult-in-the-making
• to be a consumer of popular culture
• to become a member of an economic and cultural
  sub-group within society.
• So much of adolechnic behavior can be understood
  as a process of mutual instruction and learning,
  reinforcing, integrating, connecting,
  group-forming.

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The Micro-Local

• Adolechnics exist in atomized capacity as
  individuals.
• They wield keitai as a means of defining self and
  expressing agency.
• For the adolechnic, the private social worlds
  that they create are amae-ful
• Through the acceptance of others, each individual
  is empowered to be
• Optimistic
• Inquisitive
• Playful
• Trusting
• Externally-oriented
• and pro-actively social.

12
About this Panel

• Well, enough about ME!
• As for this panel . . .
• The common name associated with digital --
  anything -- in academic discourse this past
  decade has been divide
• The fact that this panel consciously selected a
  moniker of difference in association with
  digital cannot be missed and should not be
  minimized

13
About Divides

• Divide meant a schism
• Often defined by race, age, gender, or geographic
  location
• And this worked to organize research for over a
  decade showing the various divides and
  secondary divides in place, in particular,
  between
• Nations North and South
• Between nations in a region (for instance, in
  Asia)
• Within any one country (for instance, the US or
  Japan)

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Typing Divides (DiMaggio and Hargittai 2001)

• Technical means (software, hardware, connectivity
  quality)
• Autonomy of use (location of access, freedom to
  use the medium for one's preferred activities)
• Use patterns (types of uses of the Internet)
• Social support networks (availability of others
  one can turn to for assistance with use, size of
  networks to encourage use)
• Skill (one's ability to use the medium
  effectively).

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Typing Divides

• In my earlier work on adolechnics, all 5 of these
  elements appeared in youth mobile behavior
• Denoting not so much a divide as points of
  demonstrable difference
• It is this theme that I wish to emphasize as I
  move through the rest of these comments

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Typing Divides (Norris 2001)

• 3 Levels
• the global divide
• encompasses differences among industrialized and
  lesser developed nations
• the social divide
• points to inequalities among the population
  within one nation and
• A democratic divide
• refers to the differences among those who do and
  do not use digital technologies to engage and
  participate in public life.

17
Embodied Divides

• We see these divides in each of the works on this
  panel, by turns.
• For instance
• Hjorths work points us toward the global
  divide
• Qius work underscores the social divide
• Clevelands work helps us explore the democratic
  divide.

18
Comparative Divides I

• Much work on digital divides has been comparative
• -- as we saw in the work of Lin and Jung,
  yesterday

19
Comparative Divides I

• Ishii and Wu (2006) compared Taiwanese and
  Japanese youth
• Taiwanese youth use the Internet to a much
  greater extent than Japanese youth
• even though broadband services are cheaper and
  faster in Japan
• Japanese youth use text-messaging services
  featured on mobile phones more than their
  Taiwanese counterparts.

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Comparing Divides I

• While Taiwan has developed a unique BBS (bulletin
  board system) culture, Taiwanese have a
  comparatively stronger degree of trust in the
  Internet than the Japanese.
• The Internet culture in Japan is more
  individualized.
• Japanese adolescents and young adults tend to
  avoid direct communication, resulting in the
  promotion of a unique mobile media culture among
  the Japanese youth.

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Comparative Divides I

• The findings suggest that
• despite the worldwide standardization of
  communication technologies
• the two countries have created different media
  trends for their youth
• due to culturally different personal relationship
  patterns

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Comparative Divides II

• Comparing three high-access countries in East
  Asia Japan, South Korea and Singapore -- Ono
  (2005) found that
• inequality in ICT access, use and skills reflects
  pre-existing inequality in other areas of economy
  and society in the three countries.
• Not all of which are the same in the 3 countries

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Comparative Divides II

• Specifically
• In Japan and South Korea, women are less likely
  to use computers and the Internet than men.
• In Singapore, gender inequality is less
  pronounced, but the separation between the users
  and the non-users by education and income is
  considerably larger than in the other two
  countries.
• Moreover, there is a clear divide across
  demographic groups when it comes to its actual
  usage.
• Access therefore does not translate into usage in
  these three countries

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Japans Secondary Divide
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Japans Secondary Divide

• The previous graph shows the breakdown of
  demographic usage of the internet.
• Over the last six years, almost all age groups
  have increased their share of total home PC
  access
• SAVE FOR 20 year-olds, whose share DROPPED from
  23.6 to 11.9

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Summarizing About Divides

• In short
• Divides exist
• They can be evaluated in numerous ways
• They differ both within and across countries
• This is especially true in Asia where there is
  great variation in economic, political, social,
  and ethnic configuration
• There seems to be a need for further
  conceptualization of digital phenomena

27
The Difference Difference

• Rather than a divide, the idea of difference
  takes the emphasis away from schism -- conflict
  or disjuncture.
• The emphasis is on characteristics associated
  with use or non-use
• Certainly, some of this may be embodied in
  geographic location, racial characteristics,
  gender, and economic condition.
• And by comparing the papers by Mouri and Wu
  (yesterday) we can easily appreciate the
  differences in use of mobile between Japan and
  Taiwan

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The Difference Difference

• And each of these latter elements we saw in our
  papers this session
• However, the emphasis on difference opens up
  analysis
• In ways that schism might not
• And in more positive ways

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The Difference Difference

• For instance
• in Clevelands emphasis on how racial imagery
  services a more subversive, less reactionary
  political agenda
• This evinces societys complex sectoral
  organization, that enables two contradictory
  elements to stand side by side, at once.
• Something that we all puzzled through yesterday
  and heard a partial answer from in Davidsons
  paper

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The Difference Difference

• For instance
• in Hjorths highlighting of a particular user
  group, which opens into a discussion of intimacy
• A key feature of other work on cell phone (I.e.
  Ito 2005)
• But a larger feature of Japanese media, a I have
  shown in my work on television
• Where Hjorths work is significant is in
  demonstrating the unique forms that intimacy can
  take in this particular user group
• Thus, while intimacy may be a central feature of
  all Japanese media, it is liberated in unique
  ways by this particular medium for this
  particular user group

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The Difference Difference

• For Instance
• While Qius paper accentuates the economic . .
  among his have-nots are non-economically
  delineated social groups
• school drop-outs
• rural children left behind by their
  migrant-worker parents
• Ethnic-minority youth
• Female Internet dropouts
• Certainly, the economic is the key analytic
  sector, with
• young migrant workers
• students from low-income families
• Yet, all groups he covers possess social
  definitions that distinguish them, and
  (differentially) locate them in socio-political
  space

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The Digital Difference

• One aspect of difference that we all must
  appreciate (and which authors generally do) is
  that not everything digital means keitai.
• One example is Qius emphasis on e-conomy
  which, he is clear, is not only about cell
  phones.
• online gaming is included

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Differences in Digital Difference

• While cell phone has been the dominant
  interpretation of digital in the literature, as
  well as the papers this week-end, we should
  recognize that there are various incarnations
• Most importantly
• the Internet
• Webcam/video chat
• Role-playing games
• Ipod/MP3
• Portable game players

34
Analytic Difference

• Although some devices share certain functions
• Others demand different assessments based on how
  the devices interact with, in particular,
• Psychological,
• Social-psychological,
• Social
• dimensions of human orientation and behavior.

35
Analytic Difference

• Thus, in assessing these papers I would ask that
  we also recognize the following
  difference-makers in tendering analysis about
  digitization in contemporary life
• Digital demands
• Digital capabilities
• Digital opportunities
• Digital influence
• Digital response
• And that these 5 aspects may/will likely differ
  depending on the particular device (digital
  medium) under study

36
Analytic DifferencePublic versus Private

• Another important distinction in certain analyses
  is the use of digital devices in public versus
  private
• For instance, engaging in good night pillow talk
  by phone may differ from talking by phone as one
  walks down the street
• Listening to an MP3 on the train can be socially
  distancing (and interpretable as such) doing the
  same thing in ones own room ought not be viewed
  the same way
• A simple observation is that this is one role
  (and a justification) for ethnography to
  establish and concretize such differences

37
Analytic DifferencePlace and Mode of Use

• The difference in use suggests that the same
  digital device might be capable of producing
  different social outcomes
• Based on its place of use
• As well as its manner of use
• Differences that we saw outlined in the research
  reported by, among others, Galbraith and also
  Manabe.

38
Analytic DifferencePublic versus Private

• In certain cases, with certain devices, the
  distinction between use in public versus private
  space may not matter
• As, for instance, when we talk about
  co-presence
• Or when we regard Internet use
• Texting, emailing, web-searching, conducting
  commercial transactions
• I.e. when we emphasize function/use-value

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Digital Devices asDifference Markers

• The cultural role of these digital devices is not
  only to adopt a style of life
• It demarcates one as belonging to a group
• Any group
• Which implies sociality
• Demonstrates popularity
• Refutes anomic-ness

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Borrowing from Goffman I

• Remember Erving Goffman? (We ought never forget
  him)
• When Goffman talked about tie-signs he meant
  that a gaze could link one passerby with another
• Applied to digital phones, we can see them
  serving as tie-signs of a different sort
• Tying us to unseen others
• Implying networks beyond direct social
  surveillance
• Marking us as belonging elsewhere
• Beyond the current space of observation

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Borrowing from Goffman IIMarking Difference

• Stigma is germane, as well.
• There is an is/not condition of stigma
  associated with digital use
• Is the condition of carrying and using digital
  devices in public
• Effect negates stigma
• The stigma of being an outsider, a loner, an
  outcast
• Not the condition of not bearing/using digital
  devices in public
• Effect activates stigma
• The stigma of being unaffiliated, an outsider,
  uncool

42
Surveillance and Difference

• Numerous authors (e.g. Green 2002 Ling and Yttri
  2002 Skog 2002) have argued that cell phones
  have altered power geometries
• Youth can avoid the surveillance of parents or
  others via their new mode of communication
• Certainly in Japan, this is true
• As Ito and Okabe (2003) have argued
• Mobile phones mean freedom from
• in a context where lack of space abounds
• and the major sites of daily existence (home,
  school, work, urban space) are so heavily
  monitored

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Surveillance and Difference

• While this may afford a certain privacy, the fact
  of surveillance and the presence of the cell
  phone IN THE FACE OF surveillance is suggestive
• of an open flaunting of privacy
• An open presentation of the intimate self
• As keitai (in particular) is often asserted to be
  an affective device
• It is a representative extension of us
• in our capacities of and subjectivity as being an
  intimate being
• A declaration of social independence from the
  collectivity

44
Surveillance and Difference

• The existence of social observation and the
  awareness of observation, suggests that
• digital technologies are wielded precisely to
  emphasize difference
• The differentiation of my private life from
  this public world
• In a word, because there is surveillance, public
  digital display happens

45
Assessing Digital Difference in Public

• Although insularity from public engagement may be
  one assessment of digital use in public . . .
• nonetheless, digital engagement in an alternative
  social (but private) space, is
• a social act
• committed in a specific, locatable, larger
  (common) social space

46
Intimacy and Surveillance
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Absorption or Display?

• In Absorption and Theatricality (1980) Michael
  Fried studied 18th-century French paintings
  representation of absorptive states

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Media-induced Absorption

• He emphasized portraits in which the people
  depicted ignored the beholder
• This is signified as total self-absorption a
  loss of social self-consciousness.
• It is akin to the interiority McVeigh theorized
  exists with cell phone use (2003)

49
Intimacy and Media

• Fried also argued, though, that whenever a
  consciousness of viewing exists
• absorption is sacrificed
• and theatricality results

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Surveillance and Digital Display

• As for the social worlds encounter with digital
  technology, I would agree with Fried about the
  theatricality.
• But I also think we need to look at his claim
  about viewing differently.
• He argues that when painters obliterated the
  point of view of the beholder, the 18th century
  observer
• was neutralized
• And the viewer found this neutralization
  thrilling

51
Surveillance and Digital Display

• When it comes to digitality in public, I think
  that neutralization and theatricality are wed.
• The observer, though screened off, is
• Present, and
• Complicit
• S/he stands in the outer social world in a
  position of voyeur of the digital performers,
  engaged in their public acts of private
  communication.

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Surveillance and Digital Display

• A state, I admit, I often find myself in . . .
• As I witness (spy on?) someone locked in on their
  digital device in public

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Concluding About Public Display

• Leaving me to wonder
• whether there is a communication process going on
  independent of the communication process
  involving digital technology
• Beyond the communication between human and
  machine or human and human through the machine .
  . .
• Perhaps there is the communication between human
  on machine (on the one hand) and the public world
  (on the other)

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Concluding About Public Display Communicating
Difference

• Rather than the former (ostensibly) engaged in
  excluding the latter during the process of
  their third party act of communication
• The former plays to the latter
• Signaling it
• Engaging it
• Speaking to it (about self and place of self in
  society)
• Communicating difference

55
Thank You!

• Hey Ringo
• Drum Roll, please . . .