In a recent essay in Harper’s Magazine, contributing editor Mark Edmundson bemoans the passivity of his undergraduate students. Raised on TV, they seem to him to be virtually incapable of engaging in debate or even of holding strong opinions. Yet if the predictions in futurist Don Tapscott’s new book prove right, Edmundson is about to see radical changes in the classroom climate. Ten years from now, his main concern won’t be how to get kids to speak up; it’ll be how to get a word in edgewise.

Tapscott quotes numerous studies indicating that kids who use e-mail and participate in chat-room discussions do so instead of watching TV. Because the Internet requires active engagement on the part of the user – who must constantly make decisions, evaluate information, and interact with other users – he contends that “wired” kids have significantly stronger initiative, curiosity, and self-esteem than their couch-potato predecessors.

Several chapters of Growing Up Digital examine the social and cognitive development of technoliterate kids born between 1977 and 1997, whom Tapscott dubs the Net Generation, or “N-Gen.” He skillfully debunks arguments that technology is making kids lazy and antisocial, and shows how these arguments spring from technophobia and the current climate of hostility towards youth.

His claims about the Internet do sometimes come off as a little overstated, as when he asserts, “Children without access to the new media will be developmentally disadvantaged.” The book draws largely on a year-long study of over 300 chat-room users under the age of 18. Many of the study participants were highly accomplished (several had even started their own small businesses or web zines), and Tapscott points to this as evidence of the intellectual benefits of technology. But it’s not really clear that these kids are typical N-Geners, and not just exceptionally gifted individuals.

Tapscott provides suggestions, based on real-life examples, for remodelling the workplace, society, and government to accommodate the coming wave of assertive, independent young adults. The issue that most seriously concerns him is the “digital divide” – the widening gap between technological haves and have-nots. He argues that business must take a more active role in providing underprivileged youngsters with Net access. (It’s not surprising that the book is being launched at an NDP-organized conference on youth and work.)

Any book as gung ho as this one must inspire some skepticism, but all the same, Tapscott’s optimism and faith in our youth is refreshing. If the next generation is truly as smart, energetic, and conscientious as it appears here, the future looks bright indeed.