Antonio Casilli: Doomed to be forever young? A social archaeology of the 'digital natives'

Computer culture entertains the myth of being a thing of the future. Actually, it’s been entertaining it for sixty years now. In order to understand the network society and its so-called “natives”, we need to
look at our recent history. Since the first developments of computing machinery around the mid-20th century, “electronic giant brains” have shrunk to diminutive netbooks and smartphones. Miniaturization has gone along with reterritorialization –moving computers out of military-industrial plants and into private households. As digital artefacts infiltrate the intimate sphere, they start being increasingly associated with
narratives of homely, familiar pleasures. Social representations of computer users have changed accordingly. Exit the adult scientist – here come the geeky teenagers, the rebellious juvenile hackers, the online children. From 1980s “computer kids” to today’s “digital natives”, Antonio Casilli’s presentation
highlights the economic, cultural and political factors shaping this modern myth of eternal youth.