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MYSPACE—AND YOURS “Born Digital”

orty years ago they were “Born Free,” 20 years ago they were “Born F in the U.S.A.,” but today kids are born digital, and taking their par- ents “native,” too. No matter what your age, says John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for and Society at , you can become what he calls a “digital native” by living simultaneously on line and o≠ with the help of technological aids— BlackBerrys or social-networking sites like Myspace that give you an on-line presence all day (and even all night) long. For the past two years Palfrey and his coauthor, Urs Gasser, have been working on a book tentatively titled “Born Digital,” in which they hope not only to define this group, but also to ex- amine its norms and recommend policy changes that would minimize the risks of on-line life while fostering its creative potential. One of the digital native’s primary traits is an extensive on-line persona. “[Their] identity is expressed through both o≠-line and on-line media,” ex- plains Palfrey. “And there’s not much of a distinction in the digital native’s mind between these two.” Digital na- tives pick photographs for their on-line most of whom—with di≠erent attitudes openness may pose in attracting preda- personas on social-networking sites with toward personal privacy—would never tors, they are “nowhere near as aware of the same care with which they pick their think of publishing their phone numbers the transference of data [sent] about clothes each morning. They go on line to or home addresses (let alone a photo- them across companies,” says Palfrey. Na- reveal rather than conceal themselves. graphic record of a Saturday-night ben- tive or not, nobody reads the fine print. And it’s the extent to which they reveal der) on the Internet. Even as digital na- He is worried: “The amount that some- themselves that ba±es the uninitiated, tives acknowledge the danger their body is going to be able to know about

Illustration by Lee Calderon Harvard Magazine 11 RIGHT NOW somebody [else] born today, 30 years from only variant I’ve heard to that,” says Pal- fact kids over time find that they can have now, is completely unimaginable.” From frey, “is typing en..org and going more of an impact on their society by sonograms to wedding photographs and straight to Wikipedia.” Whether or not virtue of what they can do through these the Social Security Death Index, digital Wikipedia is a credible source, teachers new media…I think that leads to a more records mark nearly every milestone in need to know that their students consult active form of democratic participation,” our lives. And, because storage is plentiful it before they can present alternatives. he says—looking forward to a time when and cheap and the information never de- Palfrey hopes that digital natives even- those who choose to be born digital regu- cays, those records don’t disappear. tually become creators of on-line content, larly make, unmake, and remake the in- Palfrey believes companies should be re- rather than simply consumers. Shooting formation world they live in. quired to disclose—either in plain English and posting a video, or writing a com- paul gleason or on an icon resembling a nutritional ment on a message board, he argues, is a label—what they do with the information way of reaching out to an audience that john palfrey blog: they collect. “What is it that you collect potentially numbers in the millions. “If in http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey and store about me?” he would ask. “Is it only what I put in, or is it my browsing habits? Do you share [data] with any third CHECKS ON CHANGE parties? How long do you keep all of [it]?” He also advocates updating the copyright code and making social-networking sites Life’s Speed Limit such as Facebook more, though by no means entirely, accountable for their users’ actions. He generally shies away from utation is the engine of evo- threatening a population’s survival. And sweeping policy measures, such as banning lution: organisms would not because this “speed limit” on genetic social networks altogether. “Kids will find Mbe able to evolve new charac- change arises from fundamental proper- some other digital public in which to live teristics if their DNA did not ties of molecules, the limit is the same for their lives,” he reasons. “You can just keep randomly acquire small changes. But mu- the simplest viruses and the most com- banning them, but it’s ‘whack-a-mole.’” tations can also be dangerous. If too many plex plants and animals. He fears that keeping kids o≠ line life-threatening mutations appear too The study, which appeared recently in would stifle the creativity he sees spring- quickly, an entire species could face ex- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci- ing up all over the Web. In amateur tinction. Now a group of Harvard scien- ences, links two lines of scientific research: videos on YouTube and in blogs, he sees a tists has calculated the number of muta- the detailed investigation of the physical popular movement toward what he calls tions that can appear in any organism’s properties of proteins, and the broader “semiotic democracy,” which refers to the genome in each generation without study of evolutionary change. DNA serves way each person watching a televi- as a template for build- sion show interprets it di≠erently. ing proteins, which are Digital tools, Palfrey claims, take the primary actors in the this a step further: instead of sim- cells of organisms. Pro- ply supplying meaning to someone fessor of chemistry and else’s show, anyone with a digital chemical biology Eugene camera can make his or her own. Shakhnovich, the study’s Palfrey points to parents and ed- lead author, says that a ucators, rather than legislators, as great deal is known children’s best guides to the often about the three-dimen- hazardous terrain of the digital sional properties of pro- world. But parents and educators, teins and how their to be e≠ective, must engage with shape a≠ects their func- that world and understand how tion. “The next step,” he young people behave in it. For in- explains, “is to under- stance, while conducting a survey of stand how the proteins’ study habits, Palfrey was unable to shape a≠ects the behav- find a single digital native whose ior of organisms,” includ- first step, when assigned a research ing their survival and paper, was toward a library. Instead, evolution. students typed their topic into a His team, led by re- search bar, scrolled down to search associate Kon- the reference in Wikipedia (an on- stantin Zeldovich, fo- line encyclopedia edited by its read- cused on a key property ers), read the entry, and then fol- of proteins: their stabil- lowed the links to learn more. “The ity. Some mutations in

12 March - April 2008 Photograph by Stu Rosner