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aptitude for computers, and form their own networks of association which
older generations cannot understand.
Some writers, such as Mark Dery, suggest that this is the basis of an
epochal change, the decisive process which justifies something approxi-
mating a second media age thesis. Increasingly, computer culture, or
cyberculture, seems as if it is on the verge of attaining escape velocity in
the philosophical as well as the technological sense’ (Dery, 1996: 3). For
those immersed in it, cyberculture ‘resounds with transcendentalist fan-
tasies of breaking free from limits of any sort, metaphysical as well as
physical’ (p 8). This, it is argued, leads to a breakdown of cultural trans-
mission and a separation of world-views.
It is certainly true that youth lead the way in their take-up and con-
sumption of New Media, with older age groups perpetually catching up.
In Finland, for example, which has the highest density of mobile phone
use in the world – 64% at the beginning of 2000 – figures clearly suggest
that take-up of the technology has been highest among the two youngest
groups, and it steadily declines in proportion to age group. As at 2000,
personal ownership statistics are revealing for the following age groups
15–19 (77%), 20–9 (86%), 30–9 (77%), 40–9 (67%), 50–9 (59%) and over 60
(29%) (see Puro, 2001: 21).
In Finland and in Norway, which has the second highest mobile
phone density, teenagers stand out spectacularly as the highest user-
group of SMS (short messaging services, or ‘texting’). For teens, it is asso-
ciated with extensive subcultures. As Skog (2001) has remarked of the
Norwegian experience, ‘SMS has spurred teens to create an anglicized
clique-based abbreviated language’ (262). According to Skog’s statistics,
75% of girls and 62% of boys regard SMS as an essential feature of their
phone (262).
The fact that a technologically mobile network of youth are able to
develop a highly specialized and defined communication culture that
excludes nearly all other age groups illustrates the potential rigidities of
the digital divide.
The ease with which armies of ‘cyberbrats’ are able to take up New
Media stands in stark contrast to the ‘technophobia’ with which older gen-
erations are often tinged. Technophobia is not an opposition to technology-
in-general, but a fear of the technologically very new and of the pace in
which this newness colonizes the life world.
The youth-biased take-up of New Media does not, in itself, demon-
strate resistance among older age groups. Rather, it is more likely that
younger people will find New Media intuitive because they do not have
to adapt from a prior regime of working with media apparatuses. When
young people learn computers, for example, their complexity rapidly
becomes transparent. In Heideggerian terms, children already have a
theoretical attitude in working with computers, for which practical reason
is naturalized. However, for those without this attitude, significant anxieties
may be aroused in using any kind of technology.