Ambient produsage

I consider myself to be fairly technically competent - and quick - with a range of hardware and software, but I have been struggling to keep up with my 8 year-old-niece this weekend in our instant-messaging exchanges as she sent me pictures, powerpoint slides she has completed for school, websites to look at, voiceclips and a series of nudges and winks that punctuate our 'conversation'. I gave up when she sent me a desktop background that turned out to be a Care Bears background when I opened it, as then I had to cope with floating hearts, flowers and bears on a garish pink background in addition to trying to keep up with her flow of information. I told her I had to get back to doing some work (which was true, but perhaps a little cowardly). As Beer and Burrows suggest, attention needs to be paid by researchers to 'transformation in the nature of the relations between production and consumption as they become simultaneous and even ambient in the routine activities that generate the content of Web 2.0'. I can consume and produce at the same time, but obviously not at the same rate as my niece, who seems to have reached the ambient stage - in comparison, I appear to be an emergent 'produser', drawing from Bruns' concept. I promise to try harder, although I will always draw the line at the Care Bears.