Douglas Rushkoff Talks About Message of 'A.D.D.'

Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff is a member of the cyberpunk movement and was an associate of the late Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson. He also wrote three "Frontline" TV documentaries. His most recent work, "A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division," centers on the world's luckiest teen gamers. Raised from birth to test media, appear on reality TV and enjoy the fruits of corporate culture, the squad develop special abilities that make them the envy of the world - and a grave concern to their keepers. One by one, they "graduate" to new levels that are not what they seem. I had the opportunity to interview Rushkoff when he was promoting the book.

What are you trying to say with the book? Are you saying technology is bad or that it can be used either for good or bad?

I would say technology is neutral. What are we going to use it for? What are we doing? It feels to me like we are, as a nation certainly, more concerned with programming our children with technology than teaching our children how to program technology. If we continue down this road we'll not only have real incidences of things like ADD, Asperger's, and everything else going up, but we're going to have a society of people that no longer know how to think.

That's sort of the main thing in terms of warning. We as the adult culture are so concerned with maintaining the profit margins of failed corporate models that we would surrender our children to that. All of the adults treat the children as the fodder for their experiments for their own designs on the future rather than raising kids who can be leaders and think for themselves. The kids in this story take the only exit possible, which is this other place. They exit whether it exists or not. They exit and in their mind they're evolving to the next place. They're dropping out from our perspective.

I was wondering about the sexual content of the book. Don't you feel that you would have reached a broader audience if you had cut out the nudity in the book? I think it's going to limit your reading audience. There are a lot of younger kids out there who would learn something from the book but their parents won't let them read it because of the nudity. How do you feel about that?

I thought we were pretty limited on that. The closest to nudity is that video game. They covered all the things, though (laughing). I think kids need to read it, too. Not little kids. I would certainly think maybe high school and above should be able to handle it. You don't want an 11 or 12 year old getting to that ending (of the book). It ends up being something like an incest story. Not that anyone had sex with their parent, but she implanted herself with her son's seed. Until you're a freshman in high school you shouldn't consider such possibilities (laughing).

I want young people to read it, too. I thought [about] what would be possible if I took away this or that. It's tricky writing a story that really crosses over. [It needs to be] both exciting enough for a high school or college person to read but doesn't cross that line.

"Avatar" is too much because they kind of do it in [the movie]. That's too much for that age group. Most parents would let their kids see that. [In] "Titanic" they have sex in the car but little kids are watching that, too. Then you look at the "Twilight" vampire movies and they don't do anything. [Those] vampire movies are actually sexually non-explicit, so it can be done. I've been wondering if this scene wasn't there or if this one was hidden more or suggested more would it have created a bigger audience. I can't help but think about those kinds of things.

For more articles by Eric Shirey, check out:

'A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division' Graphic Novel Review
'Batman: The Dark Knight, Volume 1: Golden Dawn: Deluxe Edition' Review
'American Vampire Volume 3' Graphic Novel Review

Eric Shirey is the founder and editor of Rondo Award nominated movie and comic book news websites MovieGeekFeed.com and TheSpectralRealm.com. His work has been featured on Yahoo!, DC Comics, StarWars.com, and other national entertainment websites. Besides his three decades long obsession with everything sci-fi, horror, and fantasy related in TV and movies, Eric has what some would call an unhealthy love for comic books. This has led him to interviewing and covering legendary writers and artists in the medium like Geoff Johns, Scott Snyder, Steve Niles, Bernie Wrightson, and Howard Chaykin.