Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

What is this all about?

Digital natives are the people who were born into a generation of technology and were born roughly from the mid 1990’s on. This generation is also referred to as the ‘Net Generation’. People born before this time would be known as Digital Immigrants.

Since time has begun, we have labeled each generation.

• The people who fought in WW1 are known as The Lost Generation.
  

• People born from 1916 – 1920 are known as The Greatest or The GI Generation as this generation fought in WW2 & the survivors that live to this day are honored veterans.

• The Silent Generation label was given to those born from 1926-1938 & they are known as the children of the great depression.

• The next generation from 1945-1960 was named The Baby Boom Generation.

• We called the next generation, Generation X which was people born from 1960 – 1982. This was a really nasty generation as families experienced lots of divorces and suicide and murder figures skyrocketed. However, this was the first generation to experience personal computing, gender equality and started more businesses.

• Generation Y came next which was people born from 1982-the mid 1990’s. My generation actually. We were the fortunate ones to be born during the big economic boom which was emerging through large developments in technology. They started ‘planning’ families with having deliberate children. Health care and education improved a bit, not by much depending on which country you were in. The USA & Europe would have had a similar change and advancement and some countries developed quicker.

• Digital Natives are the generation from the mid 1990’s and on to this day in 2015. They are the tech savvy’ist of us all. My kid cousin was born in 2008 and he is able to beat me by 204 levels in Candy Crush on his iPad & also fix the reason by iMessages aren’t sending? The Kid is 7 years of age and I just think he is wonderful. FYI he has been fixing my IT issues since he was 4 years old.

Digital immigrants include all those generations before generation Y and even some people in generation Y. Can the digital natives teach us? Will they take over from us? To be honest, to think about what way technology will be in 10 years time is interesting isn’t it? But is also a little scary. Just think, if my four year old cousin in 2012, fixed my iCloud back up & sorted the settings on my iPhone, with a limited verbal capacity & knowledge of the world, what will he be doing 10 years from then? Breaking firewalls, hacking Washington DC, controlling his own android robotic army?!?! these thoughts just cross my mind sometimes. Its really going to be based on his education that he gets now though isn’t it? The great Sir Ken Robinson gave a great TED talk into how schools kill creativity. Its really worth a watch.

The below video will bring you to youtube:

The link below will bring you to the TED website:

My only hope is that little Cian isn’t told to change and become a normal high achieving creature of the education system here in Ireland, that ends up with high points and does law, medicine or teaching. I hope he will be encouraged and led to a path of success by his teachers through life. Maybe a lot has changed now though. It might not be as unbalanced as what it was when I went through primary or secondary, where if you were good at art, and you exceeded all expectations in it, your maths grade decided if you made it to college or not. I hope that they will re address the system so he has a fighting chance of becoming the next Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Bill gates, Marissa Ann Mayer, Joseph M. Tucci or even the next Mark Zuckerberg.

The digital native himself the other day, skyped me to inform me that he has to scroll down through his game for a while in candy crush before he finds me….. on the level ladder & added that his mom is still getting texts from me from my iCloud email.

I don’t understand it at all, and this smug 7 year old is just itching to fix it. He fixed an issue I was having with internet connectivity on his last visit when he was 6 on the cusp of turning 7. The type of age that a person in born into, moulds the person for the future. With the right guidance, education & support, they can be who ever they wish to be. Although it is intimidating, knowing that the digital native is gaining more knowledge and is going to lead the way to future advancements is exciting.

Jeff De Graff, author for the Huffington post wrote a great article on his point of view between the digital native and the digital immigrant. Lastly see this great quote by Rupert Murdoch as he talks about himself as a digital immigrant.