How does the “Facebook marriage” option change the kind of relationships young people form?

At what point does texting to stay in touch with friends and family become texting to maintain safety blanket of connectivity?

Why do kids need school when they can look up the answers to all of their questions on their smartphones?

These questions, posed in Howard Gardner and Katie Davis’s The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, “elevate the discussion beyond knee-jerk complaints about ‘those #@#!! kids who are on their phones all day’.” as Mindful Magazine put it. From individual blogs like Sassy Peach, and Family Focus Blog, to larger outlets like About.com’s Elementary Education blog and Teachers.net, parents and educators joining Gardner and Davis’s conversation on the merits and pitfalls posed by the culture of complete immersion in technology as they struggle to understand today’s youth.

The App Generation’s careful and insightful look into the generation born into an app-based world has garnered interest from many communities. As Just Another New Blog, BookSpin, New York Journal of Books, and other varied communities around the blogosphere share the discussion, the essential question emerges:

 Is the next generation “app-dependent” or “app-enabled”?

Learn more at TheAppGenerationBook.com!

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