Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation | 
 enlarge | Author: Don Tapscott
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 181442
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0071347984
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.23
UPC: 639785311171
EAN: 9780071347983
ASIN: 0071347984
Publication Date: June 9, 1999
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Amazon.com Review
Don Tapscott, author of The Digital Economy, turns his attention to the way young people--surrounded by high-tech toys and tools from birth--will likely affect the future. In Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, Tapscott parlays some 300 interviews into predictions on how today's 2- to 22-year-olds might reshape society. His observations about this enormously influential population, which will total 88 million in North America alone by the year 2000, range from the kind of employees they may eventually be to how they could be reached by marketers.
Product Description
The bestselling book announcing the arrival of the Net Generation--those kids who are growing up digital--now in paperback. Heraled by Library Journal as one of the Best Business Books of 1997, Growing Up Digital tells how the N-Generation is learning to communicate, work, shop and play in profoundly new ways--and what implications this has for the world and business. Growing Up Digital offers an overview of the N-Generation, the generation of children who in the year 2000 will be between the ages of two and twenty-two. This group is a "tsunami" that will force changes in communications, retailing, branding, advertising, education, etc. Tapscott commends that the N-Generation are becoming so technologically proficient that they will "lap" their parents and leave them behind. The book also demonstrates the common characteristics of the N-Generation:
acceptance of diversity, because the Net doesn't distinguish between racial or gender identities, curiosity about exploring and discovering new worlds over the Internet and assertiveness and self-reliance, which result when these kids realize they know more about technology than the adults around them.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 Future Schlock December 4, 2006
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
As a long-time net user AND baby boomer, I found much of what Tapscott says completely wrong, be it his unscientific conclusions regarding the so-called "N-Gen" (his own invention, which I find so distasteful and misleading that I'll not use it from now on), his predictions for the future, or his dim view of the technological abilities and intelligence of the boomers.
For example:
1. He assumes that boomers will always remain behind the young when it comes to using the net. There is endless talk of the growing percentage of youthful net users, while ignoring (and thereby discounting) any corresponding growth in boomers using it. He mentions more than once that because youth "assimilated" the net whereas boomers had to learn to use it, youth has an advantage in that respect. (I suppose that some kid raised in a car and thereby "assimilating" how to drive would have a great advantage over all of us dummies who had to learn by taking driver's ed, too.) Now, I don't know how technologically adept or otherwise he might be, and some allowance must be made for the time the book was written (1998), but nowadays I've got news for him: It ain't that hard!!!
2. He stereotypes boomers as being one-dimensional and ignorant; only youth is imaginative, unselfish, open-minded and resourceful. He predicts either a terrible clash between the generations or (in the unlikely event that the boomers wake up in time to cede control to youth) something of a utopia run by the young. It's funny, but a lot of people from that generation that I've encountered hardly fit that profile (and yes, I'm talking about people online)...and I never thought I was all that closed-minded (though I'm sure his advocates would disagree after reading this). Besides, isn't youth traditionally more imaginative, etc., etc.? What proof does he have that this generation won't turn out as all the others have? It's called "growing up." (And I don't mean that it's a 100% good thing!) And he contends that in that generational clash the young will have the advantage, having mastered the greatest tool for mass communication ever: the internet. Evidently the boomers will still be sending telegrams and will thereby be left behind.
3. He mentions that the young have some nebulous advantage in that they espouse so many different points of view, while boomers (there's that stereotyping again) see everything in black and white (I'm not kidding, that's exactly what he says at one point). Not surprisingly, he offers absolutely no proof for either of those assertions. As someone who's spent most of his life finding shades of gray in everything, I think he's confusing the word "different" with "differing," blissfully ignorant of the possibility that all of those contending viewpoints might result in nothing but cacophony.
4. His insights on the young seem to mostly stem from those kids he's spoken with on less than a handful of websites. Evidently he thinks that these websites provide a completely scientific sampling of that generation. Believe me, there ain't no such animal! I'm happy for those sites in that they were frequented by a very nice segment of the younger generation (though even here, some things--like the continuous protestations of teenage males that they would never, ever even think about visiting a porn site--seem somewhat disingenuous, to say the least), but I've been to many sites and participated with many from that generation who, I assure you, were hardly the little angels he's making everyone out to be (and I'm certainly not saying they're all bad, either...but these are rather sweeping generalizations, proof that HE thinks in black and white, anyway).
5. His usual, completely unscientific, means of arriving at a proof of one of his theories is to first introduce it, then to provide some truly scientific though barely related evidence (a chart that shows internet growth or something), and finally to submit a few quotes from his kids to bolster his standpoint. None of this, of course, proves anything, and I'm quite certain that anyone with a professional background in statistical analysis could easily rip his logic to shreds.
6. He sees the net as the road to the truth, and the new generation as particularly discerning of it. Yet everyday I find another hoax in my email, many of them passed on to me by gullible youngsters.
All of which amounts to his own utopian view of youth, a somewhat curmudgeonly distaste for the opinions and abilities of the boomers, and a blatant force-fitting of his transparent opinions (and, in the end, that's all they are) upon the actual, both slimly provided and barely relevant, facts.
It doesn't surprise me at all that younger people have given the book so many positive opinions on here; they're being told what they want to hear. What does surprise me is how few people have seen how poorly constructed his arguments are (regardless of how true or false his conclusions may be). What does that say about the ability of this new generation to discern the truth with a critical eye?
If the proof is in the pudding, keep in mind the year this was published: 1998. That was almost a decade ago (as I write this), long enough for a good part of that generation to come of age, long enough to begin to see some of his sweeping changes, long enough for many of his predictions to have come true. Where are they? People are talking about the book on here as if it were just published and he's showing us the world as it will be 10 years from now. He IS!...only that "10 years from now" is NOW!
N-Geners are Heroes February 17, 2004
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book will definitely appeal to young people. The author creates the term 'N-Generation' obstensibly because Generation-Y was owned by another author. The book creates a super youth culture that is underappreciated and misunderstood. If you want to write a book that will appeal to young people and get a good rating on the college campus ... just trash the previous generation and the youth will scramble on board the turnip cart. This book does a disservice to youth and to the previous generation by promoting stereotypes, underscoring obscure opinions, and understating the contributions made by the Boomers.
The author should keep in mind that the N-geners didn't create computers and for the most part, they are clueless when it comes to coding. They do not qualify as experts ... not by a long shot. To encourage youth today to believe that they are experts in computers ... and the people who designed them are not ... is setting them up for real disappointment.
The author's opinions on TV and media are also absurd. He creates a model in which the state of everything that is not N-Gen is fixed and unchanging ... while the opposite is true for his heroes. Perhaps the most convincing argument that can be made against this author's opinions is that a good deal of his computer-based examples are already 'off-the-air'. Moreover, his characterization of the pre-web media era as being fearful of the new technology is way off base ... and today's integration of technologies is proof of this.
The book was written to promote sales rather than good, usable, and thoughtful ideas. Young people will adore this author ... not because he makes a good case ... but because he writes what they want to hear ... and makes them feel the way they want to feel ... like heroes.
 A slanted perspective on it... September 3, 2003
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
When I first read it years ago, and rereading it today, I find a lot in this book that is insightful and, moreso, true. The author gives a look into the trends, ways, and lives of the N-Gen that is intriguing. Being one of this generation, it is like looking into my past and recalling my childhood.
 Best of the best. January 2, 2003
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is absolutely one of the best researched, most interesting, well written, and easy to read books on this topic. A must read for educators of Info-Age youngsters. It will enlighten the pre- Info-Age generations to a whole new world and way of thinking!
 Nothing New March 9, 2002
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Maybe my expectations were too high based on the reviews. I found most of the information in this book to be news items. Also, anyone that follows technology in the news will not find much insight into this book. The book is an overview of how the younger generation uses technology in their social lives, play and work. If you are not very familiar with the internet and don't watch the news this book would be worthwhile. However, anyone who uses the internet and keeps up on the news won't get much out of it.
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