Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

There is a great difference between digital natives and digital immigrants, but I don’t feel like everyone has to fit in one category or the other. Digital natives are those who have spent their lives surrounded by increasingly sophisticated technology and are completely affluent in the digital world. “They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age” (Prensky, 2001). Digital immigrants are those who were not born into the digital universe but have adapted to new technology. “Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology” (Prensky, 2001). I fit somewhere towards digital native I’m completely comfortable with technology but I have not lived my entire life in the digital world. I notice characteristics of both digital immigrants and digital natives that I can relate to.

There is a major difference between technology I used in high school and the technology I employed in college. Technology advanced greatly between the time I was a freshman in high school and the moment I graduated from college. The computer course I took when I was in ninth grade was a simple typing course probably not challenging enough for a second grader now. In college level computer courses I learned how to program my own webpages, internet navigation, and some graphic design. There is a stark difference in the speed and complexity of the computers available at relative times. I got my first computer when I was in high school and dial up internet was used, in college they had high speed and were just putting in wireless internet servers. I think with advancing technologies lessons can become more interesting. There are so many new and innovative ways to present information. As instructors we must be aware of the impact technology can have on a classroom, “the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language” (Prensky, 2001).

These articles haven’t really changed my mind about using technology. I feel like if anything it has strengthened my belief that we as teachers should incorporate it into their classrooms as much as possible. We are living in an increasingly digital world and to not prepare our students for that reality is providing them a great disservice.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9 (5).