From Digital divides to particpation gaps: ”In years past the great fear was that the digital divide would leave black and Latino youth disconnected from the social, educational, and civic opportunities the Internet affords. However, some of the most urgent questions today are less about access and more about the context and quality of engagement. Specifically, how do race, class, gender, and geography influence the digital media practices of young people? Even as a growing diversity of young people adopts digital media technologies, not all digital media ecologies are equal… Investigations of the digital lives of black and Latino youth must focus less on the access gap and more on the “participation gap.” Whereas the former defines the issues of technology and social inequality largely as a matter of access to computers and the Internet, the latter considers the different skills, competencies, knowledge, practices, and forms of capital that different populations bring to their engagement with networked media.”

The influence of hip hop in digital media culture: “The origins of hip-hop bear a striking resemblance to the participatory norms and practices of early 21stcentury digital media culture. Some of the most iconic creative practices associated with early hip-hop—aerosol art (graffiti) and turntablism—reflect a serious social and creative investment in technology for the expression of identity and community. Early hip how was interest based, peer driven, and propelled by a rich informal learning ecology…[T]he technological aspirations of black and Latino youth are long-standing.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the context of hip-hop culture… Hip-hop culture is the dominant medium through which black and Latino teens construct their digital identities, master unique online linguistic practices, assemble social ties, and navigate their interest in pop music, videos, fashion, sports, and civic life.”

Black males and digital media. “The digital media identities, performances, and self-creation practices of young black men–how they navigate the popular culture landscape to gain recognition and prestige–is based largely on the desire to gain respect from their male peers. This bid for respectability is visible across the many platforms that converge in the use of sites like MySpace and Facebook, including music, video, photos, animation, wall posts, and status updates…The digital media practices and identities of young black men reflect the extent to which they covet the fantasies of fame, wealth, and status that color the most popular expressions of black masculinity in the production of corporate hip-hop. In this context content creation and authorship with digital media develop culturally specific notions of authenticity, social currency, and cultural capital within a distinct peer community.”

Creating and critiquing with digital media.  “In addition to observing them creating with digital media, my research has also observed black and Latino youth critiquing with digital media…These are not necessarily explicitly organized acts of civic engagement but rather casual reflections, content, and modes of expression that broaden the scope of youth digital media practices.  Whereas friendship-driven genres reflect how digital media are used to negotiate the inward-looking world of peer cultures, the civic-oriented genres illuminate some of the distinct ways in which digital media are used to look outward and critically at the world… By bringing distinct cultural sensibilities, social critiques, and lived experiences to their engagement with digital media, black and Latino youth are not only remaking the digital divide; they are also expanding the genres of participation that marks young people’s engagement with digital media.”

The mobile phone. ”For Latino and African American youth the mobile phone has become an alternative gateway to the kinds of digital media activities they prefer—social networking, status updates, sharing photos, and consuming media like games, music, and video. But is this path to the online world limited?  While mobile phones can be a tool for creativity, learning, and civic engagement, credible concerns have been raised that teens who are restricted to mobile phones for home internet use may also be restricted to media ecologies and social networks that rarely, if ever, afford access to these kinds of experiences…The issue is not whether rich or meaningful mobile learning ecologies will develop…they already exist.  Rather, the real question is, will these mobile leaning ecologies be distributed in ways that close or maintain America’s learning divide?”

Digital Media, Literacy and the Achievement Gap.  ”Even as black and Latino youth have built a robust informal media ecology, a debate has emerged: To what extent does their participation in digital media culture enhance learning outcomes such as motivation, grit, and academic success while also encouraging the development of hybrid learner identities such as writers, designers, journalists, scientists, researchers, and teachers? And what evidence exists that Latino and African-American engagement with media technology produces behaviors and learning outcomes that might impact the academic achievement gap?… Even as digital and mobile media platforms are available in a greater diversity of households, the different cultural environments in which young people use technology leads to different intensities of engagement and, ultimately, to different learning outcomes.”

You can read Digital Divides: Navigating the Digital Edge, here.

Education administrators block social media because they believe it threatens the personal and emotional safety of their students. Or they believe that social media is a distraction that diminishes student engagement and the quality of the learning experience.

Schools also block social media to prevent students from accessing inappropriate content.  I have often wondered what are schools really blocking when they block social media. Working in a high school this year has given me added perspective.

In one class my graduate assistant and I are working with a teacher in a Technology Applications class.  Our goal is to reinvent the classroom and, more important, the learning that takes place. We structured the learning to be autonomous, self-directed, creative, collaborative, and networked.   We decided to let the student teams pick which digital media project they wanted to pursue.  Some students elected to team together to produce a series of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) that target teens. These students liked the idea of using digital media to tell compelling stories about the challenges of teen life.  Other students wanted to produce short narratives.  They were excited about creating worlds, characters, and narrative dilemmas that allowed their artistic identities to flourish.

In one of our first activities we selected a sample of teen produced PSAs and narrative shorts for the students to study.  We asked them to view and critique the different styles, aesthetics, narrative strategies, and technical approaches to digital media storytelling.  The teacher posted the links to the videos online and provided the instructions.  Suddenly one student raised her hand.  She could not access some of the videos.  Another student raised her hand.  She was having the same problem.  At least two of the videos that we asked them to critique were posted to YouTube.  The teacher and I had overlooked the fact that YouTube was blocked. A few students used proxy servers to access the videos, a typical workaround in this school.  As we struggled to figure out a way to proceed with the learning activity it was clear that we needed to recalibrate the design of the class.

We faced a similar challenge in a game design class that we are working with. Some of the students were intrigued by the prospects of using a Facebook poll to conduct research to build ‘user personas’ of their peers.  We thought that the poll would be useful in teaching them some of the principles of human-centered design and also expand their social media repertoire. But because Facebook is blocked the poll could only be conducted outside of school.  This prevented us from working with them in the classroom.  It also posed a problem for some of the students who either lacked access to the internet at home or have to share computers with parents and siblings.

We are learning a lot about how young people from this community, which has been hit especially hard by the recession and the growing wealth gap in the United States, are managing their participation in the digital world.  The old theories about the digital divide—the access narrative—only explain a small part of what is happening in edge communities.

The real issue, of course, is not social media but learning.  Specifically, the fact that our schools are disconnected from young learners and how their learning practices are evolving.  The decision to block social media is inconsistent with how students use social media as a powerful node in their learning network.  Can social media be a distraction in the classroom?  Absolutely.  Will some students access questionable content if given the opportunity?  Yes.  But many students use social media to enhance their learning, expand the reach of the classroom, find the things that they ‘need to know,’ and fashion their own personal learning networks.  We have met students who have used YouTube to learn how to play a musical instrument—a not so insignificant fact for students whose  families can not afford private music lessons.   We have seen students use YouTube to help them pursue an interest in building their own gaming computer or share a multi-media project that they developed.   Last summer I wrote about students from this same school and how they created a dynamic learning community to support their interest in creating games.  Many of them shared YouTube videos with each other in order to learn how to use the game authoring software, GameSalad.  (Because it was a summer program, the students and their teacher successfully lobbied to have YouTube unblocked).

A key part of the work that we are doing with students reaches beyond the typical new media competencies such as computer, information, and digital literacy.   The teacher believes that network literacy is also crucial.  That is, teaching students what Henry Jenkins explains is, “the ability to effectively tap social networks to disperse ones’ own ideas and media products.”  Cathy Davidson’s students at Duke made a case for network literacy, that is, “using online sources to network, knowledge-outreach, publicize content, collaborate and innovate.”  A number of these students are creators and makers.  They design blogs, websites, games, and graphic art. By blocking social media schools are also blocking the opportunity:

1)    to teach students about the inventive and powerful ways that communities around the world are using social media

2) for students and teachers to experience the educational potential of social media together

3)    for students to distribute their work with the larger world

4)    for students to reimagine their creative and civic identities in the age of networked media

In the not so distant future the notion that schools should block social media will become difficult to defend.  Before that happens schools will have to reimagine their mission in the lives of young learners, the communities that they serve, and the extraordinary possibilities of networked media and networked literacy.

Part of our research is designed to explore the opportunities for and influence of “connected learning” in the lives of teens.  What is connected learning?  It is a concept that the Connected Learning Research Network, a group of researchers supported by the MacArthur Foundation, will be working to develop and refine. Broadly speaking, connected learning refers to the increasingly complex ways in which young people’s learning ecologies are evolving.  It is the notion that in addition to happening anytime and anywhere learning happens across the many different networks that teens’ navigate.  School is an obvious node in a young learner’s network.  But school represents only one node among many others which includes after school sites, extracurricular activities, online communities, libraries, family, and peer communities just to name a few.  When the lines that distinguish each of these is blurred and learning happens fluidly across the different nodes we believe that connected learning–learning that is social, mobile, engaged, efficacious, student-driven, adult supported, or civic-oriented—is happening.   One obvious example of connected learning involves students who are able to connect their out of school or informal learning with the learning activities that are situated in formal learning spaces, namely schools.

A number of questions frame our examination of these learning practices: What are the factors that lead to connected learning?  Are some youth more likely than others to experience connected learning?’  How do various social indicators like race, ethnicity, class, gender, and academic orientation influence the likelihood of connected learning occurring?  How can schools encourage connected learning? What is the value of creating opportunities for a greater diversity of young people to experience connected learning?

The Site

The high school that we are working with is an incredibly diverse environment. The school is a majority-minority site with whites making up about twelve percent of the overall student population.  More than twelve percent of students are designated as English Language Learners.  There is some degree of economic diversity though more than half, 55%, of the students are designated as low-income.  In many respects the school’s demographics reflect the population shifts that are transforming the eighteen year old and younger population in the United States; specifically, the degree to which U.S. children are more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before.

What are we learning about connected learning in this community?

Evidence of Connected Learning 

There will be more extensive data collection, analysis, and formal reporting to come but we are beginning to see evidence that connected learning is happening among our students and in a school that is struggling to keep students academically engaged and prepared for meaningful participation in a 21^st century information-oriented economy. Some of the early evidence suggest that young people in the social and economic margins are actively building pathways for connected learning for a variety of reasons: to supplement what they view as poorly stimulating classroom experiences; to create rich and rewarding peer and social networks; to move into interest-driven offline and online communities; to develop their digital media production skills in areas such as graphic arts, game design, video, and music production; to foster the development of the civic self; and to develop the skills and competencies that they believe hold the key to greater social and economic mobility.  Not all of the students that we have met fit this description but those distinctions make this community especially fascinating.  Why is that some are developing an orientation toward connected learning and others are not?

In just a short period of time we have discovered that young people who are grappling with the hidden and not so hidden injuries of race, ethnicity, class, and language barriers are practicing very distinct notions of connected learning for reasons and in contexts that researchers currently have not explored with much rigor.  Doing so will help provide data and insight to those concerned about the learning divides that are contributing to historic social, educational, and economic inequalities.  We believe the answers to these and other questions can help address the inequities that continue to shape the lives of the young and the digital.

Earlier this week National Public Radio’s “Tell Me More” aired a conversation that I shared with Tony Cox about the digital divide. We talked about the ways in which the digital divide is evolving and how the shifting digital media terrain, especially the steady adoption of technology by a growing diversity of young people, is redefining how we think about issues related to technology, diversity, and equity.

I am exploring these issues in a series of new projects that I will be reporting on over the next year.  The projects are designed to examine the digital media lives of diverse young people and how, among other things, their adoption of media technologies are redefining what it means to be a young learner or citizen.

After I explained that the emerging challenges around digital media are more about quality of engagement, particpation, and expanding the pathways to digital media literacy among a greater diversity of young people, Tony asked me, “What can be done to get more people involved in myriad ways of using the Internet and digital media?”  Here is my response:

WATKINS: It seems to me that the richest and most promising attempts to do this are really kind of happening in the informal learning spaces. So they’re happening in after-school programs, they’re happening in the summer camps, summer workshops, which is interesting and raises a whole other set of questions about why schools aren’t able to provide these kinds of opportunities.

But I think it’s happening right through community, technology leaders. I think it’s happening through social entrepreneurs who have decided, right, that these issues are so important that the digital divide today is really about digital literacy, right, and how do we begin to create environments, create spaces that encourage and support kids’ ability to develop the kinds of digital media skills that they will need in the 21st century in what I call kind of islands of kind of innovation, right?

It’s happening, you know, maybe in a couple places, you know, here or there. I’m seeing it in Washington, D.C. I’m seeing it in Oakland, here in Austin, in Chicago. I mean it’s happening in a variety of places, but it doesn’t seem to be, right, a kind of cohesive or kind of coherent effort. But one that’s kind of scattered across different communities driven primarily by visionaries, driven primarily by social entrepreneurs who have decided that it is a space that they want to step into, a space that, again, schools have been inadequate in servicing.

You can read or listen to our entire conversation here.

As far back as 2007 data started to emerge that suggested that black and Latino households were much more likely to go online via a mobile phone than a desktop or laptop computer.  We are also learning that a surging number of poor households are choosing to go with a mobile phone over a landline, largely because they cannot afford both. My fieldwork is consistently suggesting that the future of black and Latinos digital lives are linked, for better or worse, to mobile devices.   The growing appeal of the mobile phone among African Americans and Latinos has not gone unnoticed by the press.  In fact, several news outlets have even reported that mobile phones may be closing the digital divide.  Is this true?   Is there any evidence, empirical or anecdotal, that mobile is closing the digital divide?

The answer to that question depends on how you define the digital divide.  For example, if you define the digital divide as largely a question of access to technology than the answer, arguably, is yes.  Internet capable phones, to the degree that poor and working class communities can afford them, certainly bridge the access gap.  In 2009 the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that African Americans were more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to go online via a mobile phone.  But what if you define the divide in terms of participation rather than access?  Is it possible that mobile devices are reproducing some of America’s most enduring inequalities?  Truth is, there are some large gaps in our knowledge that make answering this last question difficult. But here is a start.

Much of the empirical data over the last three to four years consistently suggests that when it comes to using their mobile devices to play games, watch video, listen to music, or manage their online social networks that black and Latino youth are much more active than their white and Asian American counterparts.  Nielsen recently reported that African Americans are thirty percent more likely to visit Twitter than any other racial or ethnic group.  We began reporting two years ago that black and Latino teens were using Twitter largely via their mobile phones.

It is unclear what kinds of phones black and Latino teens from low-income and working class homes are adopting.  Are they more likely to own smart phones or feature phones?  The functionalities of the former afford powerful social, recreational, and informational opportunities while the capabilities of the latter are much more limited.  And while we know that black and Latino youth have turned to mobile as a source of anytime, anywhere media does this mean that they are largely consumers rather than creators of content?

As we begin to learn more about the media ecologies of black and Latino teens an inevitable question arises: is there any evidence that their engagement with media technology is producing behaviors and learning outcomes that might impact the academic achievement gap?  There is an abundance of evidence that suggests that the informal learning environment (i.e., leisure, extracurricular and enrichment opportunities) of middle income students is just as important as the formal environment (i.e., schools) in their academic achievement.

The academic achievement gap takes root in early childhood and is related to the formal and informal learning ecologies that kids navigate throughout life.  Different parenting practices and household resources mean that middle income kids enter kindergarten with richer language skills and greater exposure to books than their low-income counterparts. Throughout schooling these early learning divides expand. What role, if any, do digital and mobile media platforms play in America’s learning divides?

The issue, of course, is not that young people’s adoption of mobile phones causes an achievement gap that began long before any of us ever heard of the Internet or mobile phones.  Rather, what is the potential for learning and engagement with mobile media in closing the learning divides that exist between low and middle income students?  The mere adoption of mobile phones is certainly not the solution to the achievement gap.  Technology—social network sites, laptops, smart phones, games, tablets, interactive books and maps—alone will never close America’s learning divide.  This is the myth of the “digital native” narrative, the notion that youth can thrive in the digital world without any adult support, mentoring, or scaffolding of rich learning experiences.  While a greater diversity of young people are using digital and mobile platforms than ever before not all media ecologies are equal.  Thus it’s very possible that if poor and working class students adopt technologies like mobile phones in environments that do not offer adult engagement and scaffolding the potential benefits in terms of learning and empowerment may not be realized.

Currently, I’m involved in a series of case studies that examine how adult educators and mentors are creating innovative learning experiences that encourage young people, for example, to view their mobile device as a powerful data collection resource and gateway to cultivating new literacies and forms of civic engagement.  What I see is promising in terms of igniting young minds and young citizens. While only a small percentage of young people are using mobile devices as a powerful learning tool today the percentage is growing.  The real challenge is not if rich and meaningful mobile learning ecologies will develop.  As a 2011 NMC Horizon report shows, they already exist.  Rather, the real question is, will they be distributed in ways that close or maintain America’s learning divide?

In fact, the story of the most successful social media platforms is how they evolve far beyond what their creators initially intended. Facebook, once a place to connect with collegiate friends, is also used to connect to social causes, organizations, and pop culture interests.  In places like Tunisia and Egypt the political elite are blocking access to social media because it has become an alternative media tool for sharing with the world the unrest in those respective countries.  Updating the design features of these platforms so that they remain relevant and flexible enough to matter in people’s lives is a constant challenge not because the creators define the social uses of social media but precisely for the opposite reason–how everyday users adopt and innovate with social media continually redefines their meaning.

What is Social Changes as We Change

The data in our survey offers compelling evidence that Facebook is evolving into a multi-facted platform connecting with nearly every aspect of our social selves.  And while that makes some traditionalists uncomfortable it is a fact of life in the digital age.  What remains to be seen is how users of Facebook will innovate in the face of “network convergence “a reference to what happens when the varied social connections that reflect our varied selves are connected to each other through online social networks. It is a mistake to assume that active engagement with social media means disengagement with offline friends and acquaintances.  In fact, all of the data that we have been collecting over the last six years strongly suggest otherwise.

Even before conducting our study we understood that the use of social media is constantly evolving in relation to several factors including age, education, gender, geography, race and ethnicity. In our earlier work we noticed that teens used social network sites primarily as a destination and opportunity to get away from the controlling gaze of parents, teachers, and other authority figures.  My colleagues Mimi Ito and Heather Horst were part of a MacArthur Foundation funded study a few years ago that found that teens’ use of social media is actually quite layered, complex, and, yes, social.  For most teens social networks are primarily about two things–crafting a social identity and connecting to a peer community.  Despite popular opinion how teenagers use social media is not a predictor of how they will use social media in later years.  In our early research we came across evidence that marked some important transitions in the use of social media after high school.

In our research young adults’ rejection of online social networks as a place to hang out illuminates the social and behavioral changes that accompany the transition from teen to young adulthood.  First, whereas teens, due primarily to age and the school week, face a number of restrictions on their personal mobility, young adults enjoy more personal freedoms and mobility.  Second, young adults also exercise more control over their free time.   Third, unlike teens young adults do not suffer from what sociologist Ray Oldenburg refers to as “the problem of place,” a reference to the steady erosion of informal public life and places for friends to gather socially.  Young adults gather together in all kinds of places including parties, dorm rooms, coffee shops, fitness classes, and bars.

Facebook Photos Define Social Outward Rather Than Downward

At its core our study explores one question: what is social about social media?  Social behavior, as it always does, continues to evolve.  Social media expands our opportunities to engage friends, family, acquaintances, and the world around us.  Several indicators of sociability emerge from our work but I will focus on one–the posting and browsing of pictures.  When we talk with young people (and this increasingly applies to the millions of 35+ users of Facebook) browsing photos consistently emerges as a major part of the Facebook experience. According to Facebook its more than 500 million users worldwide share about 30 billion pieces of content–pictures, web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, etc.–a month.

Turkle observes that, “you can be pro-photo sharing without being convinced that it expands our social lives,” adding, “It’s a way of defining downwards what it means to be social.” Rather than dismiss photo sharing as defining social behavior downward I prefer to think of it as defining social behavior outward.

Not only is the sharing of pictures social– I call it “lifesharing”– but many of the pictures that people post on Facebook often capture activities that are social in nature–friends hanging out together at parties, athletic events, and sharing meals and drinks together. Seventy-six percent of those surveyed in our study say that the photos that they post are of social gatherings with friends.  More than half, 55%, say that the photos that they post are of family-based events.  It’s true, a growing percentage of the pictures shared on Facebook are of family related activities including weddings, vacations, and reunions.

The pictures that users post and what they elect to share tell intriguing stories about who they are and also who they aspire to be.  As I think about our research the posting and browsing of pictures via Facebook is a complex social activity that intersects with many of the current debates about social media in general and Facebook in particular– issues like privacy, publicity, identity, performance, personal expression, narcissism, and prosumption (i.e., people producing and consuming cultural content) just to name a few.

We also have a bit of data on when people are most likely to be on Facebook and our preliminary analysis suggest that it’s usually during the periods they are unlikely to physically be with friends–early in the morning or late during a weekday evening.  (We will need to think more carefully about this as Facebook mobile now means Facebook anytime and anywhere). Pictures spark conversations and fond feelings that can pull a close social circle of friends even closer together or help distant friends and family feel connected even though they may be far away.

I don’t see evidence that Facebook is making us anti-social or that its use is defining social behavior downward.  I do see evidence that users are adopting the platforms features to expand how we express our social selves.

Click this link, “Got Facebook?,” to see our study.

Even among the young kids who do not own a phone they certainly know how to use them thanks to the growing presence of app-based mobile platforms like the iPhone. A game designer friend of mine recently referred to the iPhone as a “pass back toy.” Confused, I asked him “what do you mean?” He explained. “You know, driving in the car and the child in the back seat asks, ‘mom can you pass me your iPhone?’”

Yesterday Microsoft introduced its Kin phone, a device the software giant hopes will generate buzz and business for the company’s entertainment division. The Kin and Kin One are designed to make social networking applications like Facebook andTwitter the hub of the mobile phone experience. Instead of the standard interface that displays the various functions of the phone, the Kin devices display status updates from your friends. The Kin devices, “are aimed at 15-30-year-olds who are social networking enthusiasts,” says Robert Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division.

This is a bid for young mobiles. On the surface, the main idea driving the development of the Kin–that teens spend much of their time connecting to their social networks– makes a lot of sense. Teens are heavy users of social network sites. This is no longer a fad but an established fact of young life in the digital age. While the platforms and tools may change the desire to connect with their peers anytime and anywhere is likely permanent for the foreseeable future. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project 7 of 10 teens use social network sites. Among older teens, ages 16-18, more than 8 of 10 use social network sites. Computer-mediated social networks give today’s teens something that previous generations of teens coveted but could never truly claim–a space to congregate, call their own, and is separate from the adult world.

In our research with teens it is clear that the mobile phone is used primarily as a device to connect and communicate with peers through texting and social network sites. They also enjoy snapping and posting pictures online. From the moment they wake up to the time that they finally fall asleep at night (usually with their phone in bed with them) connecting, communicating, and sharing with their peers via their mobile phones is a non-stop activity. Just last year there was widespread speculation about why teens were not using Twitter. Today, teens are constantly checking their mobile for tweets from their friends and favorite celebrities. For a variety of reasons including costs, lifestyle, and what they value from their mobile, the vast majority of teens own what are called feature rather than smartphones. Though not nearly as powerful and capable of the multiple functions enabled by smartphones feature phones work quite well for young teens. This is especially evident among the 16-and 17 year-olds we have been doing research with this year.

By the time they enter high school, the mobile phone really functions as the hub of teens social and mobile media lives. The phone is inseparable from their bodies and is the main lifeline to their peers. In his post for the ReadWriteWeb, Microsoft’s New Phone Gets the Social/App Balance Wrong, Marshall Kilpatrick maintains that Microsoft’s new phone collides with the dominant trend in mobile–the rise of mobile apps. Kilpatrick argues that the Kin places too much of an emphasis on the social uses of the mobile and too little on the growing trend of phones as a mobile application delivery system. But is this true for teens?

I wonder if the use of apps for young people is primarily about casual and mobile gaming. In other words, at what point in the life-cycle do non-gaming and entertainment based apps matter? A phone that does not offer gaming as a part of the young user experience will likely have limited appeal. But what about a phone that does not offer apps? The Kin seems to get the significance of the social in young people’s engagement with mobile. The question Microsoft will soon need to answer is at what point do apps, especially non-gaming and entertainment based apps, matter to young social networking enthusiasts? I don’t think we know the answer to that question yet. There is even some evidence that despite their wide appeal most people tend to use only a handful of the apps that they download. And the apps that teens tend to care about–the ones that help them connect more easily to their social networks–are central to the Kin’s design and marketing campaign.

Something else that we are learning in our research with young mobiles is that they tend to switch phones frequently. In the past they upgraded their phones as much for aesthetics or the look of the phone as anything else. The phone after all is a main fashion accessory for teens, a cultural statement, and expression of identity. But upgrades today are just as likely to be about the functions or the capabilities of their mobile phone. The phone after all is a main tool for sharing their lives and the content they create with peers.

My take on the Kin? If it is easily affordable it has a chance to play a role in the life cycle of young technology users at a time when peers–what they are doing and who they are doing it with–is all consuming. That’s a brief period before other things become equally important like which college to attend and what’s happening in the world around them. Microsoft says the Kin targets 15-30 year-olds. I can see the 15-18-year-old market trying it out but beyond that the Kin will likely have to expand what users can do to appeal to their older target.

What is means to be social and connected today is constantly evolving throughout the life-cycle of the young and the digital. So to is their adoption of mobile phones.

Follow The Young and the Digital on Twitter @ scraigwatkins.

In a follow-up to a recent set of events I did an interview with the MacArthur Foundation Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning. Here’s an excerpt.

As the digital divide closes, thanks in no small part to mobile media, the question is no longer who’s using digital media, but how. Are African American youth engaging with digital in dynamic ways that will help them develop useful skills and greater capabilities?

You can read the full feature story here.

Another story on the Spotlight blog related to my research and a collaboration between the UNCF and MacArthur is here

Also, a great summary of MacArthur’s successful Digital Media and Learning conference held in San Diego can be read here.

Follow The Young and the Digital on Twitter @ scraigwatkins.

Whereas 30% of white households were accessing the internet only about 13% of Latino and 11% of black households had home internet access. That gap established the framework for what we know as the digital divide, the rise of the “technology rich” and the “technology poor.” Consequently, as we entered the new millennium the debate about technology and social inequality was focused squarely on the “access gap.”

Fast forward to today and profound shifts in the social and digital media landscape are apparent. Black and Latino kids are going online from a vast array of places–school, libraries, community tech centers, and home. Data from a variety of sources confirms that we have shifted from the “access gap” to what Henry Jenkins and others describe as the “participation gap.” What is the participation gap? Well, it’s a reference to the fact that as a more diverse population joins the digital world how do we begin to understand the different skills, interests, ethics, and cultures that produce different new media ecologies, literacies, and modes of participation in digital media culture?

Even though the access gap has closed in some corners of the digital world (though certainly not all; a huge age gap still persists) race, class, education, geography, and economics continue to matter in the digital world. In my presentations I have focused specifically on how African American and Latino youth, through sheer determination and innovation, are remaking the participation gap. Twelve years ago young blacks and Latinos hardly figured in the conversations about young technology users. The data today strongly suggests that they may in fact be leading the digital transition.

Here are a few of the points that I’ve been addressing in my public talks.

1. In 1999, when the Kaiser Family Foundation released its first national study investigating the media behaviors of 8-18-year-olds they found that black and Latinos were significantly less likely to go online from home than their white counterparts. Moreover, young whites spent more time online than black or Latino youth.

2. Ten years later the media environments of white, black, and Latino youth has changed significantly. In their 2010 report Kaiser finds that the amount of time young people spend using media throughout the day has risen sharply, especially among blacks and Latinos. When you combine all media used, multitasking and otherwise, Hispanic youth spend about 13.0 hours a day with media. Black youth spend just about as much, 12:59 hours whereas white youth spend 8.36 hours. Even more interesting: on a typical day young Latinos (1:49 hours) and blacks (1:24) are spending more time online than their white counterparts (1:17).

3. When it comes to mobile media the gap is even wider. According to Kaiser, black and Latino youth are the heaviest consumers of media content via the cell phone. Black youth spend the most time using their phones for music, games, and videos: almost an hour and a half (1:28), compared to 1:04 for Hispanics and 26 minutes among white youth.

4. Since 2004-05 we have learned from Amanda Lenhart, an analyst from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, that black and Latino youth are just as likely as young whites to create a social network profile. There is growing evidence that young blacks and Latinos are spending more time on social sites like MySpace and even Facebook and Twitter than young whites.

5. In our recent work with a group of black and Latino teens they talk passionately about the role of mobile phones in their lives. The mobile, quite simply, is the hub of their social and informational world. That’s true of a growing number of all young people. But African Americans, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, are more likely than their white or Latino counterparts to go online via a mobile phone than a desktop or laptop computer. They are emerging as early adopters of the mobile web.

When I spoke with Amanda at the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning conference this past weekend she said that Pew would soon be releasing results that further support my observations. We all know that mobile is the future. By 2020, according to one Future of the Net report, the majority of Americans will be accessing the internet via a mobile device. But the future is now for some internet users, especially for young African Americans.

Finally, in our research with black teenagers they offer a host of reasons for why they prefer going online from their mobile phones. Some believe it’s a more affordable on ramp to the online world. Some believe it is more reliable, that is, no need to worry about the old or broken down computers they encounter at school or at home. The main reason: their mobile device offers a more empowered online experience. Many schools have all but made going online a painful experience. Students can’t do the things they want to do–communicate with their peers, access Facebook, or “mess around” with technology. Libraries place time and content restrictions on what young people can do online. The mobile web, in short, limits the ability of adults to control what kids do online. This can be liberating and, at times, limiting.

Truth is, we do not know a lot about what young people are doing online with their mobile phones. What are the perils when young people’s participation in new media communities drifts further away from adults? Are teens sexting? What kinds of new literacies are they engaged in? Is the mobile web used principally to play games, listen to music, and watch videos? Or is it also used as an educational and informational resource? These are just some of the kinds of questions that need to be answered.

We will continue to update you from the field as we strive to learn more about how black and Latino youth are remaking the participation gap and, along the way, changing the conversations about technology and social inequality.

• key data points from our brand new survey on social media use

• observations from our fieldwork with young technology users

• mentions of our work

• livestream from conferences and appearances