I’m a Cultural Anthropologist of Digital Youth Culture and a Learning Scientist and Advocate for #ConnectedLearning.
Learn more about me here.
Kids and Tech: How to Tell Fact From Fiction - Lecture for National Academies' Distinctive Voices Series
“Kids and Tech: How to Tell Fact From Fiction.” Lecture for Distinctive Voices series, hosted by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. February 26, 2025.
Contrary to much public discourse, digital technology is not universally damaging to young people or driving a teen mental health crisis. Mizuko (Mimi) Ito is a cultural anthropologist who has researched teens and technology for over three decades. In this talk, she will address fears, review evidence about varied risks and benefits, and offer examples of positive and productive intergenerational engagement with technology.
Mimi Ito: A Connected Learning Perspective on AI and Neurodiversity
Mimi Ito joins Mitch Resnick to discuss the interest-driven, equity-oriented approach of Connected Learning — and how Connected Learning can provide a framework for thinking about the role of new AI technologies in children’s lives. Mimi also discusses how she is using Connected Learning principles to inform a new research initiative focusing on neurodiverse learners.
Youth Wellbeing by Design: Integrating Research, Critical Perspectives, and Innovation
Edited by Carrie James and Mizuko Ito
An edited collection with fresh approaches to tech and youth well-being that go beyond blame and simplistic solutions.
Work in Progress draft available open access
The relationship between technology use and youth well-being has been a topic of concern—and contention—for some time. The adolescent mental health crisis has amplified the debate to a fever pitch. But the relationship between technology use and well-being can’t be reduced to the question of whether social media and other technologies are good or bad. Finding effective solutions needs to be grounded in the broader and diverse realities of young people’s lives. Youth Well-Being by Design, edited by Carrie James and Mizuko Ito, shifts the conversation in productive directions, to move beyond the unproductive finger-pointing at tech, technologically determinist narratives, and fixation on sweeping, one-size-fits-all solutions that often do more harm than good.
Connected Learning Through Libraries
A resource site supporting library leaders, staff, staff, researchers, and evaluators in bringing connected learning approaches to public libraries. Libraries that integrate connected learning into their services have a transformative impact on the lives of vulnerable teens, and benefit from greater community engagement. They are able to make progress towards equity goals that go beyond quantitative measures of representation to ensure that teens from historically marginalized groups feel a genuine sense of belonging and connection.
Algorithmic Rights and Protections for Children
Edited by Mizuko Ito, Remy Cross, Karthik Dinakar, and Candice Odgers
Essays on the challenges and risks of designing algorithms and platforms for children, with an emphasis on algorithmic justice, learning, and equity.This book includes essays reporting original research on educational programs in AI relational robots and Scratch programming, on children’s views on digital privacy and artificial intelligence, and on discourses around educational technologies. Shorter opinion pieces add the perspectives of an instructional designer, a social worker, and parents.
Draft version available open access as MIT Press Work in Progress
Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media Tenth Anniversary Edition
by Mizuko Ito, Sonja Baumer, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Rachel Cody, Becky Herr Stephenson, Heather A. Horst, Patricia G. Lange, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka Z. Martínez, C. J. Pascoe, Dan Perkel, Laura Robinson, Christo Sims and Lisa Tripp
First published in 2009, HOMAGO has become a foundational text in the field of digital media and learning. Reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people live and learn with new media in varied settings—at home, in after-school programs, and in online spaces.
“When your kids are playing Minecraft, hanging out online with gamers or anime fans, they are learning—and learning how to learn. Ito’s well-researched book is for parents as well as educators who want and need to understand the power of informal learning unlocked by the media youth devote themselves to voluntarily.”
Howard Rheingold, Author of Net Smart: How to Thrive Online
The Connected Learning Research Network: Reflections on a Decade of Engaged Scholarship
by Mizuko Ito, Richard Arum, Dalton Conley, Kris D. Gutiérrez, Ben Kirshner, Sonia Livingstone, Vera Michalchik, Bill Penuel, Kylie Peppler, Nichole Pinkard, Jean E. Rhodes, Katie Salen, Juliet Schor, Julian Sefton-Green, and Craig S. Watkins
This report presents a vision for understanding and revitalizing the ways in which we support learning in a digitally networked era. Responding to the interests and needs of young people, researchers, educational practitioners, and policy and technology makers, this report synthesizes a varied set of content and perspectives: empirical research on the changing landscape of new media and learning, design principles, evaluation approaches, learner and case studies oriented to identifying and spreading positive innovations.
Affinity Online: How Connection and Shared Interest Fuel Learning
by Mizuko Ito, Crystle Martin, Rachel Cody Pfister, Matthew H. Rafalow, Katie Salen and Amanda Wortman
Boyband One Direction fanfiction writers, gamers who solve math problems together, Harry Potter fans who knit for a cause. Across subcultures and geographies, young fans have found each other and formed community online, learning from one another along the way. From these and other in-depth case studies of online affinity networks, Affinity Online considers how young people have found new opportunities for expanded learning in the digital age.
Helps those of us who are no longer kids to understand how their online and offline worlds connect. These global case studies give us insights into youth at the same time that detailed notes about how the authors themselves used their online tools to collaborate help researchers understand what is possible in a truly connected world. ~Cathy N. Davidson,Founding Director and Distinguished Professor, The Futures Initiative, Graduate Center, CUNY