Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children’s Digital Culture

by Blair Miller (Editor), Steve Gennaro (Editor)

'Young People and Social Contemporary Children's Digital Culture' explores the practices, relationships, consequences, benefits, and outcomes of children's experiences with, on, and through social media by bringing together a vast array of different ideas about childhood, youth, and young people's lives. These ideas are drawn from scholars working in a variety of disciplines, and rather than just describing the social construction of childhood or an understanding of children's lives, this collection seeks to encapsulate not only how young people exist on social media but also how their physical lives are impacted by their presence on social media. One of the aims of this volume in exploring youth interaction with social media is to unpack the structuring of digital technologies in terms of how young people access the technology to use it as a means of communication, a platform for identification, and a tool for participation in their larger social world. During longstanding and continued experience in the broad field of youth and digital culture, we have come to realize that not only is the subject matter increasing in importance at an immeasurable rate, but the amount of textbooks and/or edited collections has lagged behind considerably. There is a lack of sources that fully encapsulate the canon of texts for the discipline or the rich diversity and complexity of overlapping subject areas that create the fertile ground for studying young people's lives and culture. The editors hope that this text will occupy some of that void and act as a catalyst for future interdisciplinary collections. 'Young People and Social Contemporary Children's Digital Culture' will appeal to undergraduate students studying Child and Youth Studies and-given the interdisciplinary nature of the collection- scholars, researchers and students at all levels working in anthropology, psychology, sociology, communication studies, cultural studies, media studies, education, and human rights, among others. Practitioners in these fields will also find this collection of particular interest.

455 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Blair Miller was born in Waterloo, Ontario, but has called Toronto home since 2000. After a childhood spent oscillating between writing, dreaming and playing sports he studied Philosophy in university. As well as completing a Masters thesis on Film Theory about Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 – A Space Odyssey, he published several essays on topics such as the critical value of interpretation, and the films of Wong Kar-Wai (the titles of which are very long and academic-y). His debut poetry collection Bring Me My Hands centers on romantic intimacy, time and loss.

Blair plans to release a second collection of poetry later this year, entitled Everyone Else Has an Umbrella. He also plans to accost you with works of fiction in the near future, be it short stories or novels.

When he’s not writing, Blair spends his time as a teaching assistant, writing for a sports blog, and trying to learn how to smell the roses. This is hopefully one of the only times he will write about himself in third person.