Abstract

As digital and online technologies are variously acquired and appropriated by families the world over, questions are being asked about the social shaping and social consequences of these rapid changes in everyday life. Considerable attention has centered on young people, who, while regarded as the pioneers of the new digital age, the creative and adaptable “digital natives” who leave older generations (“digital immigrants”) behind, are also seen as particularly vulnerable in the face of techno-social change, supposedly assaulted by the onslaught of commercialized, sexualized, and manipulative images and invitations for which they are unprepared. And it is in this context that gender represents an important dimension of young people’s experiences of the internet.