Canaries in the Data Mine

“Canaries in the Data Mine is a uniquely researched book that offers an important and critical reflection on the ways proprietary social media platforms and practices have developed over the past decade. Donovan offers a poignant analysis of how young people’s perspectives can help us to better understand our contemporary moment and prepare for the future”.
Dr. Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, Director of Research, Youth Media Lab, University of North Texas

Canaries in the Data Mine offers an account of the lived experiences and cultural expectations of young people growing up in digital environments increasingly owned by others and designed for profit. At the book’s core is a participatory research project that first interviewed New York City teens about their digital habits and then engaged a group of five young people in designing the prototypical platform of their time: a social network. In this engaging book, Gregory T. Donovan penetrates beyond the interface to consider the digital geography of contemporary youth, arguing that understanding what young people are grappling with portends what is, or will soon be, felt by society at large. Drawing from in-depth interviews and design workshops, he shows how informational capitalism is reproduced at an intimate scale as well as how involving young people in digital design can foster capacities for reworking and resisting the conditions of a rising rentier society.