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TITLE: Digital Natives Series: Open Source Reality
SPEAKER: Douglas Rushkoff
EVENT DATE: 06/30/2008
RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Today's constantly evolving interactive technologies are having a profound impact on our culture, and the analog generation needs to look to its children to learn how to cope. According to new media and pop culture expert Douglas Rushkoff, the nation's youth have already adapted to the digital world's demands.
Rushkoff discussed the new cultural complexities in a lecture titled "Open Source Reality."
This is the fourth lecture in a series titled "Digital Natives," referring to the generation that has been raised with the computer as a natural part of their lives, especially the young people who are currently in schools and colleges. The series seeks to understand the practices and culture of the digital natives and the implications for education at schools, universities and libraries.
According to Rushkoff, our world is getting more complex every day. Faced with a media "run amok," a rapidly expanding global economy, the collapse of national and social boundaries and the profound impact of technology on our lives, people feel like immigrants to a very new territory. Like most new immigrants to an unfamiliar culture, they must look to their children for signs of how to act and think, Rushkoff says. He believes young people have already adapted. In his talk, Rushkoff explained the profound impact of interactive technologies, from the remote control to the joystick to the computer keyboard. What lessons do the youths who are digital natives have for older Americans and vice versa?
Speaker Biography: Douglas Rushkoff, who teaches media theory at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, is the author of 10 books on new media and popular culture, including "Get Back in the Box: How Being Great at What You Do Is Great for Business" (2007) and "ScreenAgers: Lessons in Chaos from Digital Kids" (2006). Rushkoff has written and hosted two award-winning "Frontline" documentaries for PBS: "The Merchants of Cool," which looked at the influence of corporations on youth culture; and "The Persuaders," which examined the cluttered landscape of marketing and the new efforts to overcome consumer resistance. Rushkoff writes a monthly comic book for Vertigo titled "Testament," and a column for Arthur Magazine.