Communicating Online: Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

 Hi, everyone! 

This week's topic is extremely interesting to me as a Queer Studies student. The conversation surrounding digital natives (people who have grown up with technology their entire lives) versus digital immigrants (people who grew up analog but merged into digital out of necessity) is very relevant to my studies as it offers a unique way of empathizing with immigration as a whole. 

According to Mark Prensky, this is a rather serious issue as it represents a divide between two groups of people who communicate in totally different languages. For example, the current student population is being taught by professors who are digital immigrants, and therefore have issues communicating effectively with their digital native students. According to the article, the brains of the natives may actually be provably different than immigrants, and if so, that would mean our current educational system is no longer relevant as it was structured by and for the analog generation. 

I distinctly fall into the digital immigrant group, though perhaps more digital than analog. The internet did not exist until my teen years, and cell phones weren't widespread until my 20s. I noticed a dramatic change in how our society functioned in my 30s (where I am still), and watched and participated with enthusiasm. This perhaps mitigated my own shift from analog to digital as I saw the positive effect technology had on several marginalized groups and their ability to connect with one another across previous barriers. The technological revolution impacted the way I look for information as well as the internet has made things much more accessible, and instead of spending hours in a library, I know search online databases for peer-reviewed articles and books. I'm now also an online student versus being an in-person student. Since being in college during the analog age, and now during the technological age, I can say without a doubt, I prefer this age. It's made my life as a student much more accessible. 

Interestingly, an article by Paul Kirschner states that digital natives and immigrants do not actually exist as categories, and bases this information off how "natives" use technology. Kirschner states that though natives make frequent use of technology, they aren't always aware of how to use the technology, or all that it can do, and would require training. The article also claims that natives tend to use technology for passive purposes, ie social media or finding answers to questions, but aren't always aware of how to distinguish academic sources from non-academic sources. 

However interesting this research is, and is true in many aspects, to me it speaks more to the argument of an actual divide between immigrant and natives. If students aren't aware of how to distinguish academic sources from everything else, that means they need training because the educational system is changing, and they aren't sure where to find information because the immigrant population doesn't know either. Check any social media site or online news sites to see examples of this-- journalism can be fed by hearsay, and many immigrants take opinion as fact. Also, while I agree that digital native may not ultimately be the correct term to describe the generations growing up with technology, it is accurate in that while they "speak" the language, they may not know the details behind the construction of the language. According to current research, many experts are pointing those who wish to learn English to English language TV and movies to learn how the language is actually spoken outside of academic texts, which don't include slang, cultural references, or humor. Native speakers have more of this internal understanding of the language, and even though knowledge of how language is constructed-- or in terms of technology, how it should be used-- there is an actual divide between immigrants and natives because of this internal mechanism. As someone who has lived in both eras, I've experienced this divide myself, and am watching this with my own child. The issue of natives and immigrants is more systemic that I believe Kirschner understands. 

-H