Digital environments have permeated and changed the lives of young people the world over – from mobile-phone text messaging to massive multiplayer gaming and online video sharing. For more than two decades, people have discussed and debated the emergence of a distinct and recognizable global population of young people who were born into the digital age and are growing up using information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their daily lives. This population of networked youth is often referred to as digital natives, and has been praised, celebrated, critiqued and worried over. One groundbreaking collection of seminal ethnographic studies, for instance, has outlined “how digital media are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life”. In a summary of their five-year research programme, they argue that: “Most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they navigate…. The majority of youth use new media to ‘hang out’” (Ito et al., 2008).