What Are Digital Natives
The videos linked to button above provide insight on digital natives. The digital natives are those who have been born in the digital environment generation. This generation began post 1990 when "internet and web-abled technology became widely available" (Liang, Commins and Duffy, 2010, p.13). The digital natives are also termed Net-Generation (N-Gen) and are a community of people that are "accepting to diversity, curious, assertive and self-reliant" (Dorman, 2001, p.31). Those born previous of this generation are termed immigrants. Think of technology as type of language and those born in the "pre-computer" era are learning this new language, but their 'accents' stay with them making it easy to distinguish the immigrants from the natives.
For a digital native, the technology has become a part of them. Without it, one feels incomplete and that their li. But is this the same for all people that are considered digital natives? Probably not. The way the older 'natives' think is different from the youngest 'natives' because the impact of technology has been different for each generation of digital natives. The impact of technology includes the way one thinks, learns, understands, expresses and identifies oneself. The newest generation of digital natives are being born with full exposure to all types of technology and learn how to operate it before they learn how to read. This is a world that is a lot different then it was at the beginning of the digital native era, and will continue to change.
So how can we segregate between the different types of digital natives? Look below!
For a digital native, the technology has become a part of them. Without it, one feels incomplete and that their li. But is this the same for all people that are considered digital natives? Probably not. The way the older 'natives' think is different from the youngest 'natives' because the impact of technology has been different for each generation of digital natives. The impact of technology includes the way one thinks, learns, understands, expresses and identifies oneself. The newest generation of digital natives are being born with full exposure to all types of technology and learn how to operate it before they learn how to read. This is a world that is a lot different then it was at the beginning of the digital native era, and will continue to change.
So how can we segregate between the different types of digital natives? Look below!
Possibility of Some New Terminology
Some researchers have found that the determination of a digital native and digital immigrant should not be based on the era one was born in because there are some people within the 'digital immigrant' era that are more technologically savvy then some that are in the 'digital native' era. The review by Larry Kuehn (2012) is on an article in First Monday that explained a new way of expressing the differences in how people use digital technology as the terms native and immigrant are becoming redundant to the fact that the technology has evolved drastically in the last decade of t he 21st century, specifically in the area of social media. The writers of this First Monday article say that "there is as much variation within the digital native generation as between the generations" (Kuehn, 2012, p.131).
THE NEW TERMINOLOGY
Visitors: "use technology to obtain a goal, but they are unlikely to have any form of persistent profile online which projects their identity into the digital space. They are anonymous, their activity invisible to all but the databases running the websites they use" (Kuehn, 2012, p.131). They will use sites such as email or Skype.
Residents: "see the Web as place...in which there are clusters of friends and colleagues who they can approach and with whom they can share information about their life and work. They have a profile in social networking platforms. When Residents log off, an aspect of their persona remains. Residents see the Web primarily as a network of individuals or clusters of individuals who in turn generate content" (Kuehn,2012, p.131)
The review also states these two identities should be viewed as being at each end of a continuum where most of us are moving in either direction at any point in time. Look at it this way, how many people are afraid of doing something such as online banking for various reasons but yet those people have multiple social networking sites that they post some of the similar information required for the banking. Being a resident, which most children and youth are, there are certain benefits and problem areas one needs to be aware of.
THE NEW TERMINOLOGY
Visitors: "use technology to obtain a goal, but they are unlikely to have any form of persistent profile online which projects their identity into the digital space. They are anonymous, their activity invisible to all but the databases running the websites they use" (Kuehn, 2012, p.131). They will use sites such as email or Skype.
Residents: "see the Web as place...in which there are clusters of friends and colleagues who they can approach and with whom they can share information about their life and work. They have a profile in social networking platforms. When Residents log off, an aspect of their persona remains. Residents see the Web primarily as a network of individuals or clusters of individuals who in turn generate content" (Kuehn,2012, p.131)
The review also states these two identities should be viewed as being at each end of a continuum where most of us are moving in either direction at any point in time. Look at it this way, how many people are afraid of doing something such as online banking for various reasons but yet those people have multiple social networking sites that they post some of the similar information required for the banking. Being a resident, which most children and youth are, there are certain benefits and problem areas one needs to be aware of.