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• An invaluable contribution to the field of children and the media.
• Followup the author's acclaimed keynote at the 2009 NAMLE National Conference.
• Important innovative research in an accessible format with practical conclusions and recommendations.

Is the internet really transforming children and young people's lives? Is the so-called `digital generation' genuinely benefiting from exciting new opportunities? And, worryingly, facing new risks?

In this major new book by Sonia Livingstone, a leading British researcher who keynoted the 2009 NAMLE National Conference, these pressing questions are examined in a fresh and even surprising way.

Children and the Internetdeliberately avoids a techno-celebratory approach and, instead, interprets children's everyday practices of internet use in relation to the complex and changing historical and cultural conditions of childhood in late modernity.

Drawing on current theories of identity, development, education and participation, this book includes a refreshingly critical account of the challenging realities undermining the great expectations held out for the internet - from governments, teachers, parents and children themselves.

She presents original research while also surveying the rich body of literature that defines this field and concludes with a forward-looking framework for policy and regulation designed to advance children's rights both on- and offline.

Noted British media researcher David Buckingham notes that " Sonia Livingstone offers a balanced and comprehensive assessment of the role of the internet in children's lives. Combining rigorous quantitative and qualitative research with a critical awareness of broader theoretical questions, this is a definitive work that takes the debate to a new level."

"Sonia Livingstone is equally at home with statistical and ethnographic insights as she digs deep into the paradoxes and contradictions surrounding young people's online lives. She punctures myths and tips over sacred cows here, but in the process, she's modeling a process of healthy skepticism about the claims being made on all sides about what it means to grow up digital. Throughout, Children and the Internet offers us a guide to how we might seize the potentials and avoid the risks of this new and uncharted cultural terrain." Henry Jenkins, Massachussetts Institute of Technology