The Myth of the Digital Native

The terms digital native and digital immigrant were coined by Marc Prensky in a 2001 article of the same name, and although he did not explicitly define it, the term was later applied to children born after 1980. I had heard specifically of digital natives before and believed it to refer to those born during the Internet’s golden age, but what I didn’t realize was that I was included among their ranks.

I don’t immediately consider myself to be a digital native and this fact was made abundantly clear during this week’s tool exploration. I think I only recognized two maybe three of the tools that were recommend to try out, but please don’t tell anyone, lest my membership in this cohort be revoked. This is of course an exaggeration, but it illustrates the problem with these terms and believing that that everyone born after a certain date has an innate understanding of technology. I came across this video from PBS Digital Studios which explores the question of whether digital natives actually exist.

But more serious than the question of existence is whether there is a danger in thinking that digital natives don’t need to be taught how to use technology? I think the answer is a resounding yes. The video argues that no one is born a fluent speaker of any language, whether it’s computers or Swahili; it must be learned, through immersion and practice. I also enjoyed that the video touched on the theme of access that I blogged about in my last post. It states:

“[computers] are a huge part of our everyday life but they are a privilege that not everyone has total access to, and if they do, access doesn't come prepackaged with understanding.”

It can be tempting to want to ascribe these intuitive skills and penchant for all things technology to a generation born in the age of the Internet based on broad assumptions about their seemingly constant use of these tools; however, it is a risky practice, especially when it comes to education. Just because members of younger generations may be surrounded by technology that didn’t exist for previous generations, we shouldn’t assume that proximity is synonymous with proficiency nor even preference. In this week’s reading, Crook (2012) notes that despite the push to embrace Web 2.0 opportunities for engaging this digital generation, the evidence suggests that students are not as inclined to take advantage of them and that their “engagement is biased towards consumption rather than production” (pg. 65). While these tools can provide new opportunities, as educators, we should not assume that students will take them up automatically and without guidance.

Finally, I came across this article which argues that the digital native rhetoric has been perpetuated by proprietors of educational technology who seek to profit by selling solutions to this problem of connecting with a new generation. If we are to believe that digital natives exist, then we accept the idea that members of the digital-savvy generation think and learn differently than students that have come before them, and that is perhaps the biggest myth of all.


References:

Crook, C. (2012). The 'digital native' in context: tensions associated with importing Web 2.0 practices into the school setting. Oxford Review of Education, 38(1), 63-80. doi:10.1080/03054985.2011.577946

Prensky, Marc (October 2001). "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants". On the Horizon. 9 (5): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1108/10748120110424816

Sadowski, J. (2014, July 9). The “Digital Native,” a profitable myth. Retrieved from https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-digital-native-a-profitable-myth