Her work has been featured in Wired, CNN, NPR, The Hill, The New York Times, EdSurge, LitHub, the Atlantic, Fast Company, LifeWire, Gizmodo, and USA Today.

In 1998, she received a Ph.D. from the Department of Education for her dissertation: "Interactive Media for Play: Kids, Computer Games and the Productions of Everyday Life" (Stanford University 1998).

[5] Ito has conducted a wide range of ethnographic research studies on how teens and young adults in Japan and the U.S. engage with new media and emerging technology.

The book, "Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out" (MIT Press 2013)[10] reported on the outcomes of this study and was co-authored with fourteen of the investigators who participated in the Digital Youth Project.

[12]  It consists of an interdisciplinary group of 30+ UCI Faculty who collaborate to research, design and mobilize learning technologies in equitable, innovative and learner-centered ways.

Reports resulting from these projects include: In 2019, Ito began a collaboration with Candice Odgers, Stephen Scheuller, and Katie Salen Tekinbas to investigate the relationship between diverse forms of teen engagement with digital technology and wellbeing.

Notable outputs from this body of work include the report, "Social Media and Youth Wellbeing: What We Know and Where We Could Go" (Connected Learning Alliance 2020)[19] and the edited collection "Algorithmic Rights and Protections For Children" (MIT Press 2023).