ABSTRACT
Humans have always had intimate associations with the devices and technologies they have created and no matter what the technology; contemporary commentators have predicted that the consequences will be socially transformative. For most adults, much of the 'digital ecology' which surrounds people is something that has developed in the course of our lifetimes and to which people have adapted – some of them more readily than others. Technologies always enter into already existing socially constructed worlds – a fact routinely recognised by designers who take considerable care to design technologies which are accessible and which resonate with the consumers they are trying to attract. There is a danger that in wanting to draw broadly on a range of different perspectives, one does not do theoretical justice to any of them. The majority of young people do have some regular, if highly variable, engagement with that world and it is hard to deny that this is potentially challenging for schools.
