翻译《数码青春——千字概述》

November, 2008

二零零八年十月

Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project

利用新媒体生活学习：数码青春项目的研究发现概述

Authors

作者：

Mizuko Ito, Heather Horst, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Becky Herr-Stephenson, Patricia G. Lange, C.J. Pascoe, and Laura Robinson with Sonja Baumer, Rachel Cody, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka Martínez, Dan Perkel, Christo Sims,and Lisa Tripp. The research was a joint project of the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley.

伊藤瑞子等。该研究是南加州大学与加州大学伯克利分校的联合项目。

Research Summary

研究概述

Over three years, University of California, Irvine researcher Mizuko Ito and her team interviewed over 800 youth and young adults and conducted over 5000 hours of online observations as part of the most extensive U.S. study of youth media use.

过去三年多以来，作为最广泛的全美青年媒体使用调查的一部分，加州大学欧文分校研究者伊藤瑞子及其团队采访了逾八百名少年、青年，并进行超过五千小时的线上调查。

They found that social network and video-sharing sites, online games, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of youth culture. The research shows that today’s youth may be coming of age and struggling for autonomy and identity amid new worlds for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression.

他们发现，社交网络和视频共享网站，在线游戏，以及诸如iPod、移动电话等配件现在已经是青年文化的标准配置了。研究显示，今天的年轻人即将成年，在新世界争取交流、交友、游戏、自我表达的自主和身份。

Many adults worry that children are wasting time online, texting, or playing video games. The researchers explain why youth find these activities compelling and important. The digital world is creating new opportunities for youth to grapple with social norms, explore interests, develop technical skills, and experiment with new forms of self-expression. These activities have captured teens’ attention because they provide avenues for extending social worlds, self-directed learning, and independence.

许多成人担心儿童把时间浪费在上网、短信、玩电子游戏上。研究者解释为什么年轻人觉得这些活动吸引人、很重要。数码世界为年轻人应付社会规范、追求兴趣、发展技术技能、体验新形势的自我实现，创造机会。这些活动吸引住了青少年的注意力，因为这些活动为扩展社交圈子、自我导向学习、独立自主，提供途径。

Major Findings

主要成果

Youth use online media to extend friendships and interests.

年轻人使用线上媒体拓展友谊和兴趣。

Most youth use online networks to extend the friend-ships that they navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religious organizations, sports, and other local activities. They can be “always on,” in constant contact with their friends through private communications like instant messaging or mobile phones, as well as in public ways through social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook. With these “friendship-driven” practices, youth are almost always associating with people they already know in their offline lives. The majority of youth use new media to “hang out” and extend existing friendships in these ways.

大多数年轻人使用互联网拓展他们在学校、宗教组织、体育场所、其他当地活动等熟悉环境中结成的友谊。他们可以永远在线，经常通过私人通讯如实时聊天或移动电话，与朋友联系，也通过社交网站如MySpace、Facebook 等公开途径联系。出于“友谊驱动”的做法，年轻人总是与他们在现实生活中已经认识的人交往。大多数年轻人利用新媒体“挂出”友谊，拓展用这种方法产生的友谊。

A smaller number of youth also use the online world to explore interests and find information that goes beyond what they have access to at school or in their local community. Online groups enable youth to connect to peers who share specialized and niche interests of various kinds, whether that is online gaming, creative writing, video editing, or other artistic endeavors. In these interest-driven networks, youth may find new peers outside the boundaries of their local community. They can also find opportunities to publicize and distribute their work to online audiences, and to gain new forms of visibility and reputation.

少数年轻人还利用网络世界，探寻那些他们在学校和当地社会没有机会获得的兴趣、信息。线上团体允许年轻人联系到分享各种特殊小众兴趣的人，无论是线上游戏、文字创作、视频编辑，或是其他艺术创作。在这些兴趣驱动网络中，年轻人可能会在当地社区之外发现新的伙伴。他们也能找到向网络观众发表发布自己作品的机会，并获得新形式的知名度和声誉。

Youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online. In both friendship-driven and interest-driven online activity, youth create and navigate new forms of expression and rules for social behavior. By exploring new interests, tinkering, and “messing around” with new forms of media, they acquire various forms of technical and media literacy. Through trial and error, youth add new media skills to their repertoire, such as how to create a video or game, or customize their MySpace page. Teens then share their creations and receive feedback from others online. By its immediacy and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning.

年轻人从事以伙伴为基础、以自我为导向的在线学习。通过友谊驱动及兴趣驱动的线上活动，年轻人创造并运用新形式的社会行为表达方式和规则。通过探索新的兴趣、工艺、“瞎搞”各种新媒体，他们养成了各种形式的技术和媒体素养。通过反复尝试，年轻人获得了新的媒体技能，比如如何创建一段视频或游戏，自定义自己的MySpace页面等。然后，年轻人通过网络分享自己的作品，并接受反馈。因为信息的实时性和广度，对于自我导向的学习，数码世界的阻碍更小。

Some youth “geek out” and dive into a topic or talent. Contrary to popular images, geeking out is highly social and engaged, although usually not driven primarily by local friendships. Youth turn instead to specialized knowledge groups of both teens and adults from around the country or world, with the goal of improving their craft and gaining reputation among expert peers. While adults participate, they are not automatically the resident experts by virtue of their age. Geeking out in many respects erases the traditional markers of status and authority.

某些年轻人“沉迷于技术”，钻研某一课题或技术。与一般认识相反，沉迷于技术，是高度社会化、非常忙碌的，但通常并不发生在本地朋友之间。年轻人抱着改善技能、从专家同行中收获声望的目标，投入到全国各地甚至世界各地的，由年轻人以及成年人构成的专业知识团体。虽然有成年人参与，但由于年龄的原因，他们不会主动成为固定专家。沉迷于技术，在许多领域消灭了地位和权威的传统标识。

New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom setting. Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented by set, predefined goals.

年轻人并不喜欢课堂环境，新媒体允许年轻人某种程度的自由和自主。年轻人尊重彼此在线上的权威，他们从伙伴处学习，往往要比从成年人那儿学习，更加主动。他们的努力基本上来自自我导向，通过探究得出结果。相比之下，课堂学习是机构导向的，预定目标的。

Implications

结论

New media forms have altered how youth socialize and learn, and raise a new set of issues that educators, parents, and policymakers should consider.

新媒体的形式改变了年轻人交际和学习的方式，向教育者、家长和政策制定者提出了一系列需要考虑的新问题。

Adults should facilitate young people’s engagement with digital media.

成年人应当促进年轻人运用数码媒体。

Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth are picking up basic social and technical skills they need to fully participate in contemporary society. Erecting barriers to participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning. Participation in the digital age means more than being able to access serious online information and culture. Youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are generally not characteristic of educational institutions.

与成年人想象的不同，年轻人在挂网的同时，也在学习现代社会必须完全掌握的基本社交和技术技能。阻止年轻人上网，也剥夺了获得这类学习的机会。投身数码时代，意味着不仅仅是能够获取诸多网上信息和文化。年轻人也能够受益于教育者更开放的实验形式、社会探索，然而，教育机构一般都没有这些特征。

given the diversity of digital media, it is problematic to develop a standardized set of benchmarks against which to measure young people’s technical and new media literacy. Friendship-driven and interest-driven online participation have very different kinds of social connotations. For example, whereas friendship-driven activities center upon peer culture, adult participation is more welcomed in the latter more “geeky” forms of learning. In addition, the content, behavior, and skills that youth value are highly variable depending on with which social groups they associate.

由于数码媒体的多样性，很难制定一套标准来衡量年轻人的技术和新媒体能力。友谊驱动和兴趣驱动在线参与，两者的社会内涵有很大不同。比如，友谊驱动的活动集中于伙伴文化，与之相反，在兴趣驱动的、更为“奇客”的学习形式中，更欢迎成年人的参与。此外，年轻人对于内容、行为和技能的重视程度的不同，取决于他们参与的社会团体。

In interest-driven participation, adults have an important role to play.

在兴趣驱动参与中，成年人扮演者重要角色。

Youth using new media often learn from their peers, not teachers or adults. Yet adults can still have tremendous influence in setting learning goals, particularly on the interest-driven side where adult hobbyists function as role models and more experienced peers.

年轻人往往利用新媒体向伙伴学习，而不是教师或成年人。但是成年人仍然在制定学习目标方面，尤其是在兴趣驱动方面产生巨大影响。此处，成年业余爱好者起到榜样作用，同时充当更有经验的伙伴。

To stay relevant in the 21st century, education institutions need to keep pace with the rapid changes introduced by digital media.

为了不至于落后于时代，在二十一世纪，教育体系需要跟上数码媒体带来的快速变化。

Youths’ participation in this networked world suggests new ways of thinking about the role of education. What, the authors ask, would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks? What would it mean to reach beyond traditional education and civic institutions and enlist the help of others in young people’s learning? Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, they question what it would mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally.

年轻人投身网络世界，表明了对教育作用思考的新途径。作者问到，具体运用在线资源和网络带来的潜在的学习机会，意味着什么？年轻人在学习时，越过传统教育、民间机构，从其他人获得帮助，意味着什么？与其假设教育是为工作和职业发展做准备的主要途径，不如问一问，将上网当作一个过程，引导年轻人更普遍的参与公众生活，这意味着什么。

More Information

更多信息

More information about the study and the MacArthur Foundation’s digital media and learning initiative can be found online at www.digitallearning.macfound.org/ ethnography.

有关该项研究以及麦克阿瑟基金会的《数码媒体和学习计划》的更多信息，可以此网站上找到。