December Book: The App Generation

 

Last week, we had the opportunity to see a talk by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis about their new book The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World. Those of you that work in formal and informal education are probably familiar with Gardner’s earlier research including his Theory of Multiple Intelligences and work with Project Zero (if not, click on the links provided to learn more).

In this current work, Gardner and Davis set out to examine how texting, tweeting, Facebook, and other technology trends have impacted the first generation of digital natives. Through various data driven research methodologies, they have drawn several interesting conclusions.

• Characteristics of the current generation of youth: more risk-averse, have a discomfort with ambiguity, more accepting of a range of identities, hyper-connected with parents. The researchers do acknowledge that these characteristics may have been influenced by variables other than technology use.

• Today’s youth see their lives as a string of ordered apps or as a single, extended cradle-to-grave app (a “super-app”)

• There is a prevailing attitude that whatever humans want should be provided by apps (a fast on-demand shortcut). If the app doesn’t exist, it should be created right away by someone. If no app can be imagined, then the desire must not matter.

• The authors draw a distinction between apps that are app-enabling (ones that allow or encourage us to pursue new possibilities) vs. app-dependent (ones that restrict or determine our procedures, choices, or goals).

• The research looks at the impact of app-enabling vs. app-dependent on three main areas: identity formation, intimacy, and imaginative powers. For example, apps can help an individual form a stronger, more powerful identity or result in a pre-packaged, superficial identity.


• They state, Whether we can go on to fulfill our full potential in these spheres, to take advantage of apps (“enabling”) without being programmed by them (“dependent”), remains a formidable challenge.

• They challenge app designers to enable users (not create dependence) and challenge parents/teachers to model using apps in an enabling way.

In our own work with tweens/teens and the educators that serve them, we have observed some of these same trends. But we’ve also seen that when introduced to a hands-on challenge such as learning to juggle, the phones go away and the teens work through the steps to mastering the task. In that way, juggling and skill toys are object-enabling because it encourages players to pursue new possibilities.