Do Digital Natives Exist?…. Revised Version
“Students today are all ‘Native speakers’ of the digital language of computers” Marc Prensky
My current unit of Digital Communications Technology, has presented Driving questions. In Week 1, a set of driving questions was presented to the class, and I was immediately drawn to “Do Digital Natives Exist”. I had never heard of Digital Native before that day and immediately I began researching, full of curiosity.
Digital Natives otherwise known as generation Z consists of any human being born from 1995 till today. So obviously as the least techy person, I thought to myself, does that make me a digital native? I can barely turn a laptop on without breaking it!!
A Digital Native is surrounded by technology and is constantly online, or connected in some way. I see this everyday, not only with myself but with my peers, as well as younger cousins. I find it quite intriguing that children today from such young ages (4 and up) know and understand how tablets and smartphones work.
Constant interactions with technology has changed children and Youths patterns in thought and infomation processing. Honestly I believe this is so true, I have witnessed kids from the age of 4, who couldn’t read or right, know that to search on youtube you could just speak, this absolutely baffled my mind! The constant interaction with technology has definitly changed thought patterns, children are smarter and will find a way to use technology to their benefits.
Thought patterns changing can also be detrimental in my opinion, as students in school require the use of the internet constantly, and thats not because books with infomation aren’t available, it of their own choosing. I believe that constant use and reliance on techology makes kids lazy and they dont fully memorize their work or even learn how to handwrite properly, because it is as easy as using google to type in a question and typing up homework and assignments on a word document.
So to conclude I generally do believe that Digital natives exist, it is evident in the way that children and teens use technology today compared to their parents and older generations. They may not all struggle with technology like me, but the constant connection with the internet, and general use of smartphones affirms that Digital Natives do exist.
Also saying, that children in todays day and age are smarter and will find a way to use technology to their advantage, that is how I feel about when these children become adults. Their cluey intuition will lead them to use technology in positive way. Digital Natives I believe will grow up to be inteligent people, who will quite possibly be able to change the world for the better, through the use of technology. And to address what fiona has said I believe that society will become more advanced when digital natives begin to work or start to attend and graduate from tertiary education,with the use of technology our society will be completely different
Until next time,
Georgea
- 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
