Is there such a thing as a digital native?
What is a digital native? Do they really Exist? These were just some of the questions that appeared in my head after just reading the title of an article by Marc Prenskey called Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1.
According to Prenskey (2001) a digital native is someone who was brought up surrounded by technology. They are people who have always had access to technology. Because of this they are meant to be “natives” to the digital language.
However I disagree with Prenskey on this. I grew up surrounded by technology, I can barely remember what that classic dial up router singles sound but instead remember the automatic connection I received through WiFi. My school gave us iPods for our learning, and they later switched to iPads. Technology has always been in an arms reach for me.
While I like to believe I know how to use technology, I do not know how to use it to it’s full advantage. As a child I used that fast connection to the WiFi to play games such as Club Penguin and Runescape, games that did not teach me much, or make my life any easier. Even with the iPods and iPads it took me many years to figure out how to use them to achieve a better study system then the pen and paper system. And even when I completed high school it was not a completely successful system and I still relied heavily on pen and paper for my final notes.
Not only do I still fail at using technology for full use of my studies, but I regularly feel frustrated when a mistake occurs that I struggle to fix. It was only two nights ago, where submitting an assignment by dragging the file, did it ‘magically’ disappear instead of appearing on the page. I calmly looked for it where I had saved it but found that it was no longer there either. It was my father, who according to Prenskey (2001) is a digital immigrant who doesn't understand much about the use of technology, located my missing file. I’m sure I would of been able to locate the file myself eventually, however my father could do it in a matter of seconds.
This is not the only example where a so called ‘digital immigrate’ have had better use of technology then myself. Not only am I not able to use technology ‘fluently’ but I know nothing of coding or design for technology. However I know of many people who would be considered to be ‘digital immigrants’ who can not only read code, but use it to create and design. A prime example of this is the ‘IT teacher’ at the high school I attended. He would be considered a ‘digital immigrant’, and he has been teaching so long he even taught my mother when she attended high school. Yet he knows so much of technology that he even has the ability to teach it to the so called ‘digital natives’.
While my generation can use technology, would not go to the extreme and call us ‘natives’, nor would I call other generations ‘digital immigrants’. One of the adventures of technology is that it is easy to use for all, and I believe that to be true regardless of generation.
References:
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–6. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy2.acu.edu.au/docview/214629645?accountid=8194
