Digesting Intarwebs

At Berkman@10 during the Language of Openness breakout session, someone in the audience complained about the too frequent use of the word “consumer” when discussing the Internet and media in general. Ever since, consumer has also irked me and yet I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it’s the English major coming out in me. Clearly the word has been contextualized and habitualized enough so that those familiar with the area of study understand and will employ the term. The association of consuming with eating, drinking, or generally ingesting, I believe, is what irritates the word’s users. I would go further to say that by utilizing the word consume in its gustatory fashion, we must also consider its consequences, thus alluding to digestion. And unless we’re speaking about the Internet strictly on academic grounds (where it would be mentally assimilated), I do not care for the WWW to pass through my bowel.

I will propose, then, that the use of consume came about because of adults. Yes, Generation X, I’m blaming you. Power to the Millennials! (I’ll discuss my intentional evasion of the phrase “digital native” in a later article. In fact, I don’t put faith in the term millennial either, but for the sake of brevity, it will remain for now.) I blame the older folk who grew up with television and commercials, spent money to go to the movie theater, and customarily lived in a pecuniary society. They are living, breathing customers. As customers, the adults of today matured regarding the world with an eye bent on finances rather than fervor. Therefore, it follows that they would approach the Internet with fiscal perspectives and intentions. Consuming digital media, specifically media inherent to the Web, then evolved from a money-hungry stomach.

And us kids are just, well, different. We’re not online to make money or use money (at least not all the time, though I do not deny calling the Internet the new teenager’s shopping-mall-turned-after-school-hangout). I’ll even go far enough to accuse adults and their outdated perspectives as the cause of the dot-com crash way back when, because they simply approached the Internet in an ignorant manner (I commend them for taking risks). My hypothesis reflects what David Weinberger and Jonathan Zittrain discussed at the final discursive session of Berkman@10, Onward!. Weinberger said, “It occurred to me that what does hold Berkman together and probably for everyone here is that we really really love the internet, just love the internet. How many people were at ROFLCon? The atmosphere at ROFLCon (an internet pop culture conference) was very different type of love of the internet. So in 10 years, how are we going to love the internet?” He expounds that the youth approach to the Internet is one of curiosity, intimacy, and passion. Youth are developing a culture online because they are not consuming the Web, acidically digesting its content and defecating LOLcats, but instead embracing the Internet creatively and living inside it, rather than using it as a tool while remaining outside its realm. In response to Weinberger, Zittrain stated, “I was struck by David Weinberger’s description of ROFLCon. I wasn’t there, but I can’t help but think that some of the goofiness, and the wonderful inanity of it, is exactly the spirit of the Internet that we celebrate here that I am continually amazed and amused by. … It’s the ability not to take ourselves so god damn seriously, while doing serious things and worrying about things like billions of people who are about to join the club, digitally speaking.” Charlie Nesson’s final words echo a similar response: “The question in shorter term for me really is, can we figure out how to engage kids of all ages in an open integrated media educational environment in a way that has them learning critical, algorithmic, strategic, thinking skills, in a form that we can measure — and that can be used as a meaningful credential.” Both professors identify the Internet as a space of informal learning, just like the neighborhood streets where adults grew up. Kids are just doing it online these days.

So how do youth engage with the digital space, strategically thinking and processing the culture that they unconsciously create? Certainly not through consumption. It’s simply by maturing, growing up, experiencing.