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7 WORKLead Author: Mizuko ItoIn her research on Silicon Valley families, Heather Horst writes about theSmith family, who “view digital media as a tool for their children’s personaland professional life.” One of the two daughters is a budding musician whowrites her own music and performs at local venues. Her older sister is anaccomplished dancer and writer who uses the skills learned while attendingthe Girls Technology Academy to help her father digitally record, edit,burn, and distribute CDs of her sister’s performances. For the Smith family,digital media production is a creative hobby that they engage in togetheras well as an activity that is intimately tied to future career aspirations forthe children (Horst 2007). Another Silicon Valley teen, a nineteen-year-oldFilipino and Japanese American, has been a leader of a fansubbing groupsince high school. At the time of our interview, he was taking time off fromcollege to help out in his family technology-related business. “If I didn’tstop school and help out, we’d be in serious trouble now,” he explained.At the same time, he was still continuing his unpaid work in fansubbing,managing a team of more than a dozen staff who churn out subtitled animeevery week for eager fans. His technical expertise serves him across multipledomains of work, some paid, some unpaid (Ito, Anime Fans).These examples of engagement with new media point to certain domainsof practice that are not covered by the other chapters in this volume. Thefocus of our project has been on learning in relation to youth practices ofplay, socializing, and creative experimentation. As we have pursued thisresearch, however, we have found that new media also have importantimplications for how young people engage in activities that they seeas serious or productive work, or that have a role in preparing themfor jobs in the future. The promotion of new media use among youth isoften justified in terms of skills training for “competitiveness” in the