{"product_id":"the-digital-is-kid-stuff-josef-nguyen-9781517911140","title":"The Digital Is Kid Stuff: Making Creative Laborers for a Precarious Economy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow popular debates about the so-called digital generation mediate anxieties about labor and life in twenty-first-century America\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The children are our future\" goes the adage, a proclamation that simultaneously declares both anxiety as well as hope about youth as the next generation. In \u003ci\u003eThe Digital Is Kid Stuff\u003c\/i\u003e, Josef Nguyen interrogates this ambivalence within discussions about today's \"digital generation\" and the future of creativity, an ambivalence that toggles between the techno-pessimism that warns against the harm to children of too much screen time and a techno-utopianism that foresees these \"digital natives\" leading the way to innovation, economic growth, increased democratization, and national prosperity. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNguyen engages cultural histories of childhood, youth, and creativity through chapters that are each anchored to a particular digital media object or practice. Nguyen narrates the developmental arc of a future creative laborer: from a young kid playing the island fictions of \u003ci\u003eMinecraft\u003c\/i\u003e, to an older child learning do-it-yourself skills while reading \u003ci\u003eMake\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, to a teenager posting selfies on Instagram, to a young adult creative laborer imagining technological innovations using design fiction. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFocusing on the constructions and valorizations of creativity, entrepreneurialism, and technological savvy, Nguyen argues that contemporary culture operates to assuage profound anxieties about--and to defuse valid critiques of--both emerging digital technologies and the precarity of employment for \"creative laborers\" in twenty-first-century neoliberal America. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Josef Nguyen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1517911141\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781517911140\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Minnesota Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/28\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.70lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.60d","brand":"Josef Nguyen","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43993041043711,"sku":"9781517911140","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_37c1ed7a-d56c-475c-bbf5-959cd52d8b83.jpg?v=1683322197","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-digital-is-kid-stuff-josef-nguyen-9781517911140","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}