Led by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, the Youth and Media project at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University encompasses an array of research, advocacy, and development initiatives around youth and technology. By understanding young people’s interactions with digital media such as the Internet, cell phones and video games, we seek to address the issues their practices raise, learn how to harness the opportunities their digital fluency presents, and shape our regulatory and educational frameworks in a way that advances the public interest.

The activities of the Youth and Media project are split into five divisions: the Youth and Media Lab, an R&D collaboration with young people devoted to media literacy and digital empowerment; the Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative, which releases policy reviews and recommendations; the Youth in Developing Countries project, a collaboration with UNICEF that addresses children’s safety in the digital context in developing nations; the Digital Natives project, a public outreach initiative that is an extension of the acclaimed book Born Digital; and Creative Rights, a copyright curriculum that is easy for teachers to use.

The Youth and Media project is an interdisciplinary academic collaboration of the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, researching young people’s digital practices, and the intersection of these behaviors with education and the law. We are lawyers, psychologists, ethnographers, sociologists, educators, and media academics. We aim to nurture and protect the creative, educational, and revolutionary possibilities of youth interactions in digital space, while at the same time addressing the serious concerns that come with living a life online.