Rating: 
Summary: Nothing New
Review: Maybe my expectations were too high based on the reviews. I found most of the information in this book to be news items. Also, anyone that follows technology in the news will not find much insight into this book. The book is an overview of how the younger generation uses technology in their social lives, play and work. If you are not very familiar with the internet and don't watch the news this book would be worthwhile. However, anyone who uses the internet and keeps up on the news won't get much out of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Higher Ed Faculty should read this book
Review: Tapscott addresses salient points about the Net generation and its expecations of educators, whether they be in K-12 or Higher Education. His discussion of the haves/have-nots (knows, know-nots?) is especially significant. According to the author, N-gen leaders of the future are already developing their global awareness and the next generation will be more protective of the earth's resources and more interested in a peacful coexistence. Let us hope he is right. REVIEW: Faculty in Higher Ed should read this book I found Tapscott's "Growing Up Digital" an answer to my ever-growing questions about the young people arriving on the doorsteps of colleges around the country. As I attend conferences and discuss the characterization of our "new arrivals" I am increasingly confronted with the question of "What are we to do?" Well, for me the answer is, in part, to read this text. I have recommended it to all faculty groups on campus, to my VP's of Academic Affairs and Student Services, to members of our teacher-training task force, as well as to those Universities to which our students articulate. Tapscott reminds us of the multi-faceted nature of the "issue" we are all facing, as we attempt to retrain ourselves, to prepare future teachers and to prepare for the next wave, that generation following (being influenced by) the N-gen-ers. I found Tapscott's insight into the Lap generation especially intriguing and his description of the need for interactive learning in the classroom a substantial challenge for faculty who have not embraced the new learning paradigm
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read for those Working with Today's Youth
Review: Tapscott does a phenomenal job of explaining how a new generation is growing up in a digital world. He explores how they think, play, learn, and interact differently as a result of being immersed with technology all around them. He mixes a decent amount of research along with examples and stories to illustrate various points. Teachers, marketing reps, and anyone else that wants to reach out to today's young people should read this book. It stands alone in terms of its research and the comprehensiveness of its coverage. A number of insights I've already applied and use for reference. There are few other books that explore the Net Generation in how technology is impacting their lives.
Rating:
Summary: The Call of the N-Geners
Review: Tapscott's compelling book provides us with an elucidating glimpse and revelation as to how the Net Generation's facility with the digital media is changing human interactions and impacting our future, with specific reference to education, business, economics, politics, and even parenting. These "bathed in bits" children, those between 2 and 22 in 2000, are characterized as tolerant of diversity, self-confident, curious, assertive, self-reliant, contrarian, flexible, and highly intelligent. These characteristics are a necessary consequence of their generation's exposure to the Net. The Net's structure has allowed for a more fluid interchange of information and interactive type of communication. In cyberspace, there are no hierarchies and the readily available access to information has created in its young netizens the quest to search for and be critical of information. This new information model is a digression and radical shift from the industrial, broadcast model that is top-down, linear, centralized, and passive. The new model is the antithesis of this broadcast model because it is interactive, distributed, and malleable. "For the first time in history youth are an authority on an innovation central to society's development" (Preface, ix). Our children know a lot more than we do in terms of technology. According to Tapscott, this situation has created not just a generation gap, but a generation lap, akin to race track leads measured in terms of gaps that consequently metaphorically heightens the stark contrast of technological knowledge between children and parents. Because these children are born with technology, they assimilate them, rather than accommodate them, which is what adults do to cope with technological advances that often produces cognitive friction for them. Whatever our station in life is or whatever role we play now, the N-Geners have serious implications for us. Tapscott mentions that they are "learning, developing, and thriving in the digital world. They need better tools, better access, more services, and more freedom to explore, not the opposite" (p. 7). Here lie the implications and challenges for us. For instance, in the workplace, these youngsters will function better in a decentralized, independent, collaborative, and innovative environment. In the educational arena, our old and outdated paradigms of teaching and learning need to change because these methodologies do not address the need of these people for more interactive and non-linear approaches to learning. As a force of unprecedented social transformation, we can learn from the experiences of these N-Geners, and listen to their needs and concerns, if we are to proactively shape the technologically driven future we all will be heading to. Tapscott admonishes us by saying that the future is not something that is predicted, but is rather a goal to be achieved. In our hands as educators, parents, business people, politicians... lies the future. Will we choose to be prepared? Will we heed the "Call of the N-Geners"?
Rating: 
Summary: Best before 1998
Review: Tapscott's overview of the Net generation sounds interesting, although some facts make the book very little serious. Fortunately in the country I live you buy Sunday's newspapers on Saturday, so I didn't got much anoyed seeing McGraw-Hill's copyright dated 1998. More serious is the fact that in the book you get statistics as of 1998 and references to 1997 are made as if it were last year. If you are a serious writer you don't need to be worried about the present becoming past before you enoughly enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: If you don't "get it", your kids probably do.
Review: Thanks for an excellent book. I'm part of the boomer generation (I'm 43), and work as a consultant for a multi-national computer company. I am continually amazed at the number of my collegues who just don't "get it". In the words of one of the N-gen's in your book, they are techno-dummies. My company has made it very clear - we are all expected to commit to life-long learning and to re-invent ourselves as we become interested in new and different things in our different careers. But many of my collegues haven't learned anything new in the past 3-5 years. They will be history soon.I really believe that technology is allowing us to be far more productive at our jobs. For instance, I work at home, via an ISDN line into our corporate network. We also use laptops for travelling (which is a LOT). Our company provides a secure way to get into our network, and we can work wherever we happen to be. For example, just last week, I worked on a proposal, along with several collegues in Vancouver, Edmonton, NYC, New Jersey, myself in a hotel in Denver, and another collegue in the same hotel. We were all assigned different parts of the proposal. My collegue in Denver downloaded some files from a server in Scotland, and cut and pasted those files, e-mailed them to me, where I added my comments; I then e-mailed them back to Scotland where a collegue read over our edits, and sent them back. I then copied the files to a common server we were using in Edmonton, where the proposal coordinator there edited all the files from all of us. This took place over 48 hours. Sounds like your book was put together in much the same way. This is the way of working in the future. I enjoy this, because I interact with people all over the world. I worked on a proposal last year with people from France, Germany, Sweden, all over the US and the Far East. The toughest part was synching up for teleconferences at times that were not too weird for anyone. But we got it done. My personal view of the 'net is that it is an online encyclopedia. I can search for anything I want, at any time, and any place. I look forward to the day when we can get information at any time, any place, and in the format that we want. We aren't there yet, but we *WILL* get there. I firmly believe that we are in the middle of a revolution that will have greater impact than the printing press, the power loom, and mass production. This will change the way we learn, work, and live our lives. I always tell my technodummy friends that using computers today is like owning a horseless carriage in the 1930's: back then you had to be knowledgeable about plumbing, electricity, and mechanics. Today you have to be a software engineer, a hardware nerd, and a networking guru. One of these days it will all "disappear", and you simply will be able to be connected in a transparent fashion. My technodummy friends think I'm nuts, but it *HAS* to happen if computers are going to proliferate like TV. I'm looking forward to a book that is due out late summer by Don Norman, called the Invisible Computer. He is ex-Apple, and is now working in HP Labs, and is working on what we call Information Appliances. Thank you again for an EXCELLENT book.
Rating: 
Summary: The medium, not the content
Review: The book and its content are important to a host of audiences - from the educational industry and its providers, to the teachers and student, and to the parents. UNFORTUNATELY, I made the mistake of purchasing the e-book version. This does not allow printing, nor does it allow selecting text for attributing quotes in papers or documents. This could be a great distribution medium, but with these types of restrictions, they reduce the motivation for me to ever purchase another e-book. I can at least photocopy "regular" book pages for my files. Given the topic of advancing technologies, ham-stringing this new medium is counter to the ideas presented in "Growing Up Digital".
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Summary: Important book on the future use of the Internet
Review: The Net Generation, as Tapscott calls it, is the future now. That generation, for which I barely qualify, is the generation that has grown up with (and in many cases on) the Internet and computers. This book better predicts the future than Negroponte's "Being Digital" because Tapscott interviewed hundreds of kids and young adults that make up the Net Generation, asking for their views on technology and how they think they can (and will) change the world. This book is more important than Being Digital. That is what I wrote about the book after reading it years ago. I would have to qualify the last paragraph by saying that Don Tapscott's columns in Canada's National Post have been overly glowing of the Internet. The Internet has yet to fulfill much of its promise of the great equalizer and interconnecting everything (i.e. the toaster to your alarm clock, etc.). I remain confident, however, in my opinion that this book should be read in order to better understand the future of the Internet as it relates to kids as they grow up.
Rating: 
Summary: What the book is all about.
Review: The Net-Generation is here. The baby boom has an echo it's even louder than the original. The 85 million boomer adults in the United States and Canada have been eclipsed by 88 million offspring. The youngest of these kids are still in diapers and the eldest are just turning 20. Similar echoes, albeit less strong, are happening in select countries in Europe, the Pacific Rim and developing world.
What makes this generation different from all of its ancestors is not just its demographic muscle but that it is the first to grow up surrounded by digital media. Computers can be found in the home, school, factory and office and digital technologies such as cameras, video games and CD-ROMs are commonplace. Increasingly these new media are connected by the Internet, an expanding web of networks which is attracting a million new users monthly. Today's kids are so bathed in bits that they think it's all part of the natural landscape. To them the digital technology is no more intimidating than a VCR or toaster. For the first time in history children are more comfortable, knowledgeable and literate than their parents about an innovation central to society. And it is through the use of the digital media that the N-Generation will develop and superimpose its culture on the rest of society. Boomers stand back. Already these kids are learning, playing, communicating, working and creating communities very differently than their parents. They are a force for social transformation.
Moms and dads are reeling from the challenges of raising confident, plugged-in and digital-savvy children who know more about technology than they do. Few parents even know what their children are doing in cyberspace. School officials are grappling with the reality of students often being far smarter on cyber-issues and new ways of learning than the teachers. Corporations are wondering what these kids will be like as employees since they are accustomed to very different ways of working, collaborating and creating and they reject many basic assumptions of today's companies. Governments are lagging behind in thinking about the implications of this new generation on policies ranging from cyberporn and the delivery of social services to the implications of the N-Gen on the nature of governance and democracy. Marketers have little comprehension of how this wave will shop and influence purchases of goods and services.
I believe (and attempt to show in the book) that there is no issue more important to parents, teachers, policy makers, marketers, business leaders and social activists than understanding what this younger generation intends to do with its digital expertise. This book is based on the belief that we can learn much about a whole generation which is in the process of embracing the new media from the children who are most advanced in their adoption of this technology.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: This book dragged on for me. I could see reading it if you were doing research or if you were a teacher. I was reading it for fun, and it was a little slow. The facts and figures were good, but it was like reading a textbook.
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