This document summarizes a research project studying how young media users aged 4-13 interact with and learn through digital media. It used ethnographic research methods to observe 31 children in their natural environments and interview them over 12-24 months. Key findings included that digital media serves as a social space where children game, communicate, and create content together. Children also learn informally through peer-produced content on sites like YouTube and social media. As mobile devices become more prevalent, children are accessing digital media across different spaces. The researchers aim to understand how children's digital media use and expertise changes over time, with digital space acting as a semi-permeable membrane between their social worlds.

1. Digital Space as Semi-Permeable
Membranes
October, 12, 2011
Alexandra Bal (Edge Lab, Ryerson University)
Yukari Seko (Edge Lab, York and Ryerson
Universities)
Jason Nolan (Edge Lab, Ryerson University)

2. Digital technologies are part of this world
and of our worldview; they are part of what
shapes us materially and ontologically as
embodied subjects… Rather than pointing
up the difference between self and
technology, [digital media] are designed to
engage the technologized self”
(Shinkle, 2005, 30)

3. Digital Natives?
http://www.automation-drive.com/fla-animation

4. Voices of Digital Natives Project
 SSHRC-funded, a 3-year qualitative inquiry
into epistemological and educational impacts
of online environments on young media users
(age 4-13)
 Informal learning (Silverstone, 1999) as
overarching theoretical framework to;
 Define digital media practices by young media
users
 Understand collaborative learning and play in
network
 Articulate the shift from novice to expert based on

5. Research Objectives
 How young media uses interface world
through digital media and construct their own
digital habitat
 How they make learning choices and co-
construct knowledge with their peers
 How they adopt digital media to blend the
online to offline interactions
 How their performance with/through/around
digital media will change over time

6. Methodology
 Ethnographic, participatory and socio-
economic approach, observe young users in
situ, in order to;
 Observe how they use digital devices
 Explore their worldview
 Enter a friendly mode of communication and build
trust
 Engage in discussions with them
 31 children in Greater Toronto Area; Interview
each child at least 3 times over 12months-
2years

7. Participant Demographics
Age Distribution (total
10 N=31)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13+ age

8. Participant Demographics
Gender Distribution
16 15
Male
Female

9. Participant Demographics
Recruitment
Location
8 7
Afterschool
program
4 6 Early Years Centre
6
Alternative school
Homeschool
Other

10. Digital media as social space
 Our participants use digital media for
 Gaming
 Searching information
 Communicating distanced family members and
friends
 Making their own content
 Gaming as socializing and informal learning
practice

11. Learning through peer-produced
content
 Internet as multi-directional educational tool
and environment
 Socialnetworking (Facebook) for school work
 Learn new skill from YouTube videos (how to
dance cook, play guitar and violin etc)
 Video chats with teachers outside Canada
 Challenge conventional notion of authorities in
preferring lay experts to professionals

13. Mash-up work
by 10 yrs old
Game&Music
lover

14. Mobile Natives
 Widespread
adoption of mobile
devices
(laptop, smartphone
s, tablets, mobile
gaming consoles)
 Increased
mobility, traversing
spaces

15. Mobile Natives
 Difference between
children born before and
after 2005
 Shift from computer as
“gaming device” to
computer as “search
engine,” “entry point to
learning space
 Influence of parental use

16. Semi-permeable Membrane
family peers
Young
media
users
Social
school
world

17. Bibliography
 Livingstone, D. (1999). Exploring the icebergs of
adult learning: Findings of the first Canadian
survey of informal learning practices. Canadian
Journal for Studies of Adult Education. 13(2): 49-
72.
 Shinkle, E. (2005). Corporeal Ergo Sum: Affective
Response in Digital Games. In N. Garrelts (Ed.).
Digital Gameplay: Essays on the nexus of game
and gamer. North California: McFarland&Co.
Pp.21-35.
 Spigel, L. (1992). Make Room for TV: Television
and the family ideal in PostwarAmerica. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press

18. Thank you!!
Contact Info:
Alex Bal: abal@ryerson.ca
Yukari Seko: yukaseko@yorku.ca
@doggyjelly
Jason Nolan: jnolan@ryerson.ca