How do children play with the Internet in public places?

Abstract:
In this study, ethnographic nonparticipant observation was conducted of a subsidized computer center providing high-speed Internet access and software specifically for children under age 14 in an inner-city library. Unsurprisingly, young children play with the Internet. Surprisingly, this creates conflict with the justifications given for such centers by adults and public policy, leading to an atmosphere of tension between differing understandings of the Internet's purpose: as a place for ritual and play vs. and as a place for the transmission of information and for work. Successful learning must be disguised as play, and children seek shared experience so strongly that they will create an object of play by producing unusabilty and circular interactivity. This maps poorly with public policies that subsidize these efforts.