Could be an eye opener for some, but perhaps generalises a bit in places - Rated 
The description and conclusions about the Net Generation seem accurate and well researched. The scholarly research background and the significant "sample" numbers help lend some weight to the analyses and summaries, and the style of writing is serious enough and inclusive without patronising. It is also a very interesting read from the perspective of socio-demographics of the last 40-50 years and it does try to take a global view outside of the USA. However it is still in some respects USA-centric with regards to some of its conclusions and assumptions and misses the mark for some countries outside North America. For example it assumes the net effect of the "pop culture" is export from the USA. However as many people know, over the last couple 4 decades much of the music pop culture has come out of the UK. Indeed the Net Geners would themselves be aware of this I would have thought. So you sometimes get the impression that the book was written very much from the perspective of the "golden oldies" [my term] or "baby boomer" [the author's term] generation in mind. So even though I am not exactly a Net Gener myself, I did find some of the narrative rather obvious and made me feel younger than I actually am. Reservations aside, I did still find some ideas and conclusions which give an interesting "angle" on the facts and the development and influence of the Internet on the generations and their reactions and adaptability to it.
Net gen guide - Rated
Tapscott's book is a sequel to Growing Up Digital; a book that he originally wrote about the net generation / millenials / gen-Y. The book is more of a defence of the net generation Tapscott takes some of the different criticisms leveled at them and deals with them head on. Are the net generation really unmanageable, spoilt, dumb, able to commune with digital electronics (kind of like Tarzan and jungle animals) and they can do 69 things at once?
Tapscott proves that the inate ability to multi-task isn't true, but most of the other positive attributes are true. The book breaks down into how the net generation need changes in education, government, business and in marketing communications. The book is easy to read, it is deceptively thick due to the appendix of data at the back of the volume.
If you are at all interested in what the future holds for us over the next ten years, I can recommend this book.
If you didn't grow up with a computer on your desk... - Rated
I'm part of the digital generation. I first hopped on the net at a painfully slow 8kbps in 1996, in the days when everything was dial-up, and there were just about 100,000 websites in the world. Computers sat as rare and unusual machines, except the home market of the Spectrum and the Amstrad PCW 8512, and I played with primitive BASIC from age 10 onwards. Since then, I feel as if I have a USB port stuck in my arm, slowly gaining a green tan from anancient monitor.
There's a curious phrase - "Mobophobia" - a fear of being out of touch after a life on the electronic nipple. After thirty years, the Computer has become a part of my life : my primary communicaton tool, a source of instant information : no longer must I wait for libraries to open, or trawl through books to find what I want to know, nor must I cling to communication through voice or printed page, but instead I can communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime. There are doubters to this mass democratisation of communication and information, but these are intellectual King Canutes trying to stem an unstoppable tide. After the industrial revolution, the Net is an electronic revolution.
This book is designed almost exclusively at those who have not grown up with a computer on a desk, who saw this tool as a late addition to the working life, who knew a different life and have had to adapt to this new way of living. It is not a 'how to' guide, or patronising approach, but an explanation of a seimisc ideological shift in the way of thinking that the 'Net generation' have in the way they see the world and interpret information. Not smarter, or dumber, just different, and capable of multi-tasking and parsing complex information in a holistic, full spectrum dominance manner : everything's connected eventually, and there are few experts but plenty of specialists.
The work can be dry, backed up with facts and figures and dispassionate analysis, failing to capture the speed and dynamism of the generation, but this is offset by frequent and effective quotations from the generation themselves and demonstrations of the positive effects of this paradigm shift in thinking. As a book, it is an efficient text that captures a moment in societal time and a tipping point in human comprehension. If you are, like many people, part of this generation, all this stuff lays clear what you already know : if you aren't, this baffling change may be explained by this rather articulate and useful book.
Seminal review of the net generation - Rated 
This is simply one of the best reviews of changing society that I've read in a long time. It looks at the modern day 12s-30s, the generation which grew up surrounded by digital technology, and attempts to understand them, for good and ill, in the world they inhabit. There are many books of this ilk on the market, but Don Tapscott's is distinguished by being the fruit of a long, international, commercially funded research programme. There is entirely new data and information on almost every page -- a welcome change from many other books, which seem to have been researched primarily by reading Time Magazine and surfing Google for blogs.
You may or may not agree with Tapscott's conclusions. I'm not sure how insightful they actually are, and it is in the area of his conclusions that this most resembles its competitors. But the research and data he presents are so useful and powerful that you can draw your own conclusions if you prefer to do that.
If I was to sum this book up in a single word, it would be 'encyclopaedic'. Just the maps of what the world looks like from a digital perspective (USA and UK are huge, Africa barely exists) speak volumes. Many of the chapters could quite happily have been expanded into entire books (but are even more happily presented in this concise format).
If you just read one 'generation-watcher' book in 2009, I would make it this one.
If you need solid data on the power of the digital generation this has it - Rated
Whilst Godin's Tribes tells the tale of the causes that are powered by sharing across the web, gathering an communicating. This book approaches it with more science, more facts, more figures.
It shows the generational change, the expectations powered by the web and web2.0, user created content, the ability to self publish and self organize and how that effects the expectations of the upcoming workforce.
It also though does not suggest it is over for those not growing up digital. This can be used and learned by anyone. Just dont ignore it, dont brush it all off as silly, just chatting on the web etc.
It provides the kind of solid research and breadth that many potential wavering business leaders and managers may need to understand their new role in the changing society.
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