digital natives.

A blog I wrote in reference to my Virtual Worlds and the Digital Consumer class:

My parents always ask me how in the world I can text so fast. My response? I don't know, I just can. My aunt wonders how in the world I can figure out how to upload pictures from any digital camera. My response? Honestly, I don't know. I just can. My teachers find it amazing that I can listen to music on YouTube, talk to my peers, and write a news article all at one time. My response? It seems easy to me, I don't know. Its just something I can do.

To turn the tables, I often wonder a similar question: Why can't you? And with this question I bring forward the discussion of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants.

In John Palfrey and Urs Gasser's book, Born Digital, they discuss the idea of two kinds of generations, the digital natives and the digital immigrants. Digital natives being those "born after 1980, when social digital technologies came online. They all have access to networked digital technologies. And they all have the skills to use those technologies." (1) Digital immigrants, on the other hand, "learned how to email and use social networks late in life . You know them by the lame jokes and warnings about urban myths that they still forward to large cc: lists." (4)

In short, Digital Natives are the young people and Digital Immigrants are the, well, older parents. As part of the Digital Native community at a fairly young age, I was often blinded by the fact that I belonged to such a community, rather I assumed that the skills were inherent in all people. Yet as I have gotten older I have come to learn that there is a wide gap between the two generations. Maybe even worthy of a large, MIND THE GAP, sign.

I do think it is critical that both the natives and immigrants learn to understand the inverse. Natives must learn to have patience with those who struggle to understand technology and be willing to teach them the little tricks that make technology so readable to us as natives. Immigrants, on the other hand, must make the effort to learn the technologies, or at least try to understand why digital natives do the things they do. This mutual understanding will lead to a more cohesive movement forward into this digital reality.

So Digital Natives: Next time you encounter a Digital Immigrant having trouble working something on the computer or turning on the DVD player, take a second away from your cell phone and Facebook and YouTube and your homework, and teach them a little something!

And Digital Immigrants: Don't get mad when your son or daughter is texting while you are trying to tell them something or Facebooking and doing homework simultaneously...we grew up this way and don't know anything different! Learn to understand this lifestyle.

Cheers to a world where there is digital democracy for all.