The App Generation

’s our argument that young people growing up in our time are not only immersed in apps: they’ve come to think of the world as an ensemble of apps, to see their lives as a string of ordered apps, or perhaps, in many cases, a single, extended, cradle-to-grave app. (We’ve labeled this overarching app a “super-app.”) Whatever human beings might want should be provided by apps; if the desired app doesn’t yet exist, it should be devised right away by someone (perhaps the seeker); and if no app can be imagined or devised, then the desire (or fear or conundrum) simply does not (or at least should not) matter.

Whether we are unpacking the technological or generational contexts, or reviewing our various empirical studies, we focus on how the availability, proliferation, and power of apps mark the young persons of our time as different and special—indeed, how their consciousness is formed by immersion in a sea of apps. Fittingly, in the concluding chapter, we consider the effect of an “app milieu” on a range of human activities and aspirations. More grandly, we ponder the questions, “What might life in an ‘app world’ signal for the future of the species and the planet?”

Having joined as an adult in her late twenties, Katie uses Facebook intermittently to stay connected to friends and family living across Canada, the United States, and Bermuda. For Molly, Facebook represents a far more integral part of her daily experience. Since she joined at the age of twelve, Facebook has represented a vital social context throughout her formative adolescent years.