Citizens had a “choice” whether or not to join the new networks cropping up, but it was actually a choice only for people middle-aged and older, who already had an economic or social status earned offline. For the youngest generation—those born in the last two decades of the twentieth century—opting out of the web meant opting out of society altogether. They were called “digital natives,” but native-born status appeared not to offer the perquisites that it had in the old analog world of national citizenships.
