Texting toward Utopia : kids, writing, and resistance
Title:
Texting toward Utopia : kids, writing, and resistance
JLCTITLE245:
Ben Agger.
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
Boulder : Paradigm Publishers, [2013]
Physical Description:
x, 221 pages ; 23 cm
ISBN:
9781612053073
9781612053080
Abstract:
"Parents complain that kids today don't do their homework because they are distracted by the Internet, texting, and video games. Many kids experience schooling as nothing more than endless homework, distracted teachers, and helicopter parents. It is easy to conclude from these factors that young people lack cultural literacy. By presenting the writings of today's kids, however, Agger develops an alternative perspective: This is the most literary of times, and the young people of today write furiously, albeit often below the adult radar. Here, where texting replaces textbooks, the writing may be emoticon-laden, slangy, or terse, but there is something profound going on, as kids (and their parents, too) engage in resistance and write toward utopia--a better world. Much texting and tweeting occur at night, when kids form egalitarian online and offline relationships and operate in a world in which a person can have many friends and explore opportunities previously unavailable to them. This book is a guide to understanding a new generation and its ideals, including democracy." -- Publisher's website.
Bibliography Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-208) and index.
Contents:
New sites of writing, writers, writings -- The book unbound -- Secret writing -- Reading kids : writing politically -- The pulpless generation(s) -- E-sociologies of virtual selves -- Time rebels -- Itime -- Slacking toward slowmodernity -- Time robbers, time rebels -- Time wars and night moves -- I hate school -- Writing toward identity and democracy -- Text messages in a bottle -- Bodies of knowledge -- Democracy in the first person.