Youth & Digital Capital in Late Modernity

This presentation considers Andy Furlong’s legacy as it relates to new scholarship about youth and the digital age. The points of departure are Andy’s presentation (Digital capital and inequality in later modernity) and his co-investigation on my Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funded project Digital Media and Young Lives over Time. This project developed digital portraits from video interviews and digital data (facebook, Snpachat, Instagram, twitter, etc.) with 185 young people and their digital shadows (those with whom they interact on line) in Canada, UK and Australia. Unlike the work of other commentators who insist on complacency and/or hysteria about the digital age, this talk focuses on sociological analyses for considering youth digital capital that both interrupts and interrogates the digital present; one deeply owned by purveyors of digital technology. The legacy of Andy Furlong is recognized in both theoretical and methodological contributions to examining digital capital for youth in late modernity. Young people interrogate gains and losses from embedded and multiple digital positions. With the generous assistance of these young cyborgs, a youth-attuned and visual rendering digital capital is presented.