Digital Media Usage Across the Life Course [Hardcover]

New York Timescolumnist, Thomas Friedman declared the modern age in which we live as the age of distraction in 2006. The basis of his argument was that technology has changed the ways in which our minds function and our capacity to dedicate ourselves to any particular task. Others assert that our attention spans and ability to learn have been changed and that the use of media devices has become essential to many peoples daily lives and indeed the impulse to use technology is harder to resist than unwanted urges for eating, alcohol or sex.

This book seeks to portray the see-saw like relationship that we have with technology and how that relationship impacts upon our lived lives. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives that cross traditional subject boundaries we examine the ways in which we both react to and are, to an extent, shaped by the technologies we interact with and how we construct the relationships with others that we facilitate via the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) be it as discreet online only relationships or the blending of ICTs enabled communication with real life co present interactions.

Contents: Introduction - an introduction to digital media usage across the life course, Paul.G.Nixon, Rajash.Rawal and Andreas Funk; The internet through the ages, William H. Dutton and Bianca C. Reisdorf; Singularity: a double bind?, Rajash Rawal and Paul G. Nixon; Citizenship in the virtual public sphere - reasonableness as a modus vivendi for life online, Andreas Funk; Birth through the digital womb: visualizing prenatal life online, Yukari Seko and Katrin Tiidenberg; Digital by default: growing into your digital footprint, Vanessa P. Dennen; Thats so unfair! Navigating the teenage online experience, Abby Philips; Living social: comparing social media use in your 20s and 30s, Natalie Pennington; Blurring boundaries: social media and boundary maintenance at midlife, Kelly Quinn; Retrospectivl3!