Blogging the Book

I've decided to start blogging a bit more about my book process and make it a Friday feature with its own category: "Totally Wired." Let me know what you think after today's first post.

This week I did three interviews (including one in the supply closet at work!). I spoke to Don Tapscott, Sabrina Weill and Benoit Denizet-Lewis.

I wanted to speak to Don to get his take on how the "Net Generation" and the issues he raised in Growing Up Digital have played out since the late 90s. He captured the pundit/parent "hysteria" that was happening over kids and the Internet back then in his book and my theory is that we are experiencing a second wave of this with the proliferation of teen blogs, Myspace and other sites where teens are hanging out. I would characterize Don as a technology "optimist" and put other folks I've interviewed like Amanda Lenhart (from Pew), danah boyd and Susannah Stern in this camp. I thought Don shared some interesting anecdotes about how he has dealt with some of these issues with his own kids. One included a "values" discussion with his son around Internet porn resulting in a pact where his son agreed to not visit these sites.

I really enjoyed chatting with Sabrina about the research she did for her book on teen sex. She also gave me some great advice on writing (two hours every day!). Sabrina definitely felt like most parents really have no clue about what their teens are doing online. This is a big theme in the book and is being called different things by different people. Janet Kornblum just interviewed me about this for USA Today. It's being thought of as one of the big causes for the "generation gap" between teens, Boomers and older Xers. Don Tapscott called it the "Generation Lap" arguing that it's more about teens having more technology skills than their parents. Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Stern seemed less bought into this argument and said there was really not research to support this. My sense is that it's less about knowing more about technology or how to use it as it is about parents not knowing (and many not wanting to know) about their teens' digital lives.

I think my favorite interview was with Benoit Denizet-Lewis. I admit, I have a bit of a writing crush on Benoit. The guy is 30 and writing amazing stories on youth culture for the New York Times Sunday Magazine (I'm not worthy!). This was also the "supply closet" interview.

I wanted to interview Benoit about his piece on hooking up or "friends with benefits" that ran in the magazine. He talked about how he thinks the trend of teens having less exclusive dating relationships and hanging out more in mixed groups of friends is mostly a positive thing. It is breaking down barriers between the sexes and to me seems like it's modeled after "Friends" the TV show. The dark side to this is the more random hooking up happening via the Internet. We talked about how this works and how adults are way more worried about the whole predator issue than teens. There's the one level of teens being exhibitionistic online (rating photos of teens in their underwear) and another of meeting another teen stranger for sex. I have to think, that while this may be happening with some teens, it's more the exception than the rule (for example, it may be happening more with gay male teens). Of the 40-50 teens I surveyed on Myspace, only two admitted hooking up via that site.

We also talked about the influence of online porn on teen guys, which is something I really want to explore more. He actually said that based on his interviews, if and when he becomes a parent of a teen, he would make sure the computer was in the living room or family room, not the bedroom. If anyone knows of someone researching this, please let me know.

Next week I'm interviewing an exec at Facebook and will be speaking with Parry Aftab from Wired Safety. I have a request out to Tom at Myspace. I still need to talk to my friends at Xanga and LJ :) That's it for now, more next Friday.

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