Do Digital Natives Exist? (Week 6)

                    Figure 1, A Boy and his Blog, (Sfarnas Animation, 2009) ©

Our society, being in the middle of the largest and swiftest technological revolution of human history, has seen a great division. Two categories of people have been reborn into the 21^st century. Firstly, the one who knows how to operate the new post-modern technologies. This is one who has the fingers of speed. They know where every letter is on a keyboard instinctively. They discover and collect information not through hours of library searching, but with their personal, electronic, pocket-sized encyclopaedia. This is the native, specifically the “digital native”. Marc Prensky identifies them as “the first generations to grow up with this new technology” (Prensky, 2001). As the agricultural native knows how to grow food from the ground, the digital native instinctively knows how to operate smartphones, tablets, and computers.

The second “new” person has...well…struggled with these new technologies. They are quite easily identifiable, holding their phone with one hand and use the other to type, rather slowly when compared to the digital native who holds their phone with their fingers and type with their thumbs. It’s not that they will never figure out this new technology, they just need a lot more time than their stereotypically younger humans. This is the “digital immigrant”. Much like all immigrants, with time and experience they will adapt to their new environment and integrate into the community. “Older boomers did not grow up in a digital world, and yet are increasingly becoming online students” (Ransdell et al, 2010). The digital immigrant will fade out and become native, just like everything in human history. What remains to be seen is when the next native and immigrant conflict will begin, and what it will entail. Maybe space flight, maybe time travel. Who knows? The only thing that is known is that during great technological advancements and inventions, there is always an immigrant, and always a native.

Reference List

Prensky, M. (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon Vol. 9 Issue 5. Retrieved 3 September 2017 from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/10748120110424816

Ransdell, S. Kent, B. Gaillard-Kenney, S. & Long, J. (2010) Digital immigrants fare better than digital natives due to social reliance. Retrieved 3 September 2017 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy2.acu.edu.au/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01137.x/full

Sfarnas Animation. (2009) A Boy and his Blog. Retrieved 4 September 2017 from https://brookesaltmarsh.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/digitalnativesandimigrants1-1n5cbfq.jpg