The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World - Hardcover

"An ambitious and admirable project... Meticulously researched and thoughtful."-New York Times Book Review New York Times Book Review "Elevates the discussion beyond knee-jerk complaints about 'those #@#!! kids who are on their phones all day'."-Mindful Magazine Mindful Magazine "[The App Generation] possesses an interesting insight. 'Young people growing up in our time are not only immersed in apps, ... they've come to think of the world as an ensemble of apps, to see their lives as a string of ordered apps, or perhaps, in many cases, a single, extended, cradle-to-grave app.'"-Dwight Garner, New York Times -- Dwight Garner New York Times "Provocative ... Provides useful frameworks for future research."-Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly "[A] necessary book."-Roger Lewis, Daily Mail -- Roger Lewis Daily Mail "Gardner and Davis have offered a challenging and thought-provoking book: particularly rewarding for educators who are interested in thinking about how young people are changing, and how we might preserve the best practices of our profession while adapting the tools that define a generation."-Education Week's EdTech Researcher Education Week's EdTech Researcher "Here we have a serious consideration that a generation has grown up with an emotional aesthetic as instrumental as their technology. That is, this generation approaches intimacy, identity, and imagination through the prism of the apps that have surrounded them. Gardner and Davis further consider the proposition that 'What can't be an app doesn't matter.' But the authors do more than this. They approach their subject in a constructive spirit, providing analytical tools to distinguish among apps, the ones that will stifle and the ones that will nurture. In the end, they see a way forward: We are responsible, individually and in our communities and families to use technology in ways that open up the world rather that close it down. The App Generation is not anti-technology; it simply puts technology in its place."-Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other -- Sherry Turkle "The App Generation deals with a crucial issue for our future, and it is a pioneering and prophetic work in its genre."-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi "This book is must reading for parents, teachers and policy makers. It presents a portrait of today's young people, not in terms of the traditional historical events of their lives, but instead the digital technology that shaped this generation. It compellingly and powerfully examines the impact, consequences, and implications for their and society's future."-Arthur Levine, President of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation & former President of Teachers College, Columbia University -- Arthur Levine "This compelling book explores what it's like to be 'app-dependent' and what life was like before the power of apps on our society. Howard Gardner, the renowned father of the multiple intelligence theory, along with co-writer Kate Davis, offers readers an in-depth look at the benefits and drawbacks of apps, and how the power of these apps can lead to greater creativity. "-Top Books for Educators,About.com Top Books for Educators, About.com "Many of the observations...are illuminated with careful thought and research [and] offer a readable and intelligent summary of where we are today."-Josh Glancy, The Sunday Times -- Josh Glancy The Sunday Times "Gardner is a renowned psychologist who has long decried box-ticking behaviourist approaches to education...he and Davis...build a strong case that a dependency on apps is having a reductive effect on young people." -Gautam Malkani, The Financial Times -- Gautam Malkani The Financial Times '[I]n the process of setting out their findings, they raise important questions: what is what they're calling "the app generation" - the young people who have never lived without the internet, without smartphones - actually like?'-Jacob Mikanowski, Prospect Magazine -- Jacob Mikanowski Prospect Magazine "A thoughtful overview of how digital media and applications have contributed to a pervasive app mentality among youth... The combination of conversational style and scholarly annotations makes the book rewarding for a broad audience, including parents and educators... Highly recommended. All Readers."-Choice Choice

No one has failed to notice that the current generation of youth is deeply-some would say totally-involved with digital media. Professors Howard Gardner and Katie Davis name today's young people The App Generation, and in this spellbinding book they explore what it means to be "app-dependent" versus "app-enabled" and how life for this generation differs from life before the digital era. Gardner and Davis are concerned with three vital areas of adolescent life: identity, intimacy, and imagination. Through innovative research, including interviews of young people, focus groups of those who work with them, and a unique comparison of youthful artistic productions before and after the digital revolution, the authors uncover the drawbacks of apps: they may foreclose a sense of identity, encourage superficial relations with others, and stunt creative imagination. On the other hand, the benefits of apps are equally striking: they can promote a strong sense of identity, allow deep relationships, and stimulate creativity. The challenge is to venture beyond the ways that apps are designed to be used, Gardner and Davis conclude, and they suggest how the power of apps can be a springboard to greater creativity and higher aspirations.