Week 2- Post 3- Growing up Digital Immigrant?
The main theme of this week’s readings have been digital natives, and the differences between growing up or not with the Internet. Though I have posted my objections to Plensky’s conception of digital natives vs. digital immigrants, the idea that there is a sort of sea change occurring between people who grew up in a mainstream computerized world vs. those that didn’t is compelling. I just dispute that the ones who didn’t are somehow at a disadvantage, or that the disparity in their behaviors is really so major. When I read articles like this, I can’t help but think about someone yelling about getting off their lawn and walking through 10 feet of snow back in their day.
What I find more optimistic is not that the digital “immigrants” (again, a term I hate to describe this group) are at a disadvantage for growing up before the rise of a computerized world, but that they have been forced to acclimate, and are succeeding. Indeed, I think the behaviors and skills they developed to thrive in a non-digital world actually help them to succeed.
I grew up having to write long hand write my homework or type it on a typewriter. My research was in physical books or the second hand encyclopedia set my parents were able to afford. I had to organize my time to do my research- I couldn’t just wait to the last minute to pull something off the internet, even from a peer reviewed database. That research had to be prescheduled. And as invariably happened when I made a mistake or did procrastinate too much, I had to develop skills to make it work, stretching the meager resources that were available to me to pull through in a pinch. Even the research was more difficult- card catalogs are not the same as a keyword search. Techniques had to be developed to be efficient at searching, to using clunky microfilm machines, to stretching even the barest mention of a concept in an index page to hit a magic number of required sources in a term paper.
These were all techniques that served me through college, at the turn of the millenium. LIbrary databases were just becoming actually useful then, but of course so many of them were not full text in those days. The typewriter I had thankfully been able to consign to oblivion a few years prior in high school. As I went to graduate school, those databases only got better and the need to do physical research diminished, but the research and planning strategies honed from those analog days remained.
I feel like an old crank just writing that. Perhaps no skill I developed in the analog days really helped me all that much, wasn’t something a digital native couldn’t have developed on their own. But that just belies my point more- I learned. I grew up with the technology. And after I finished schooling and entered the workforce, I had to continue keeping up with technology in order to succeed, to progress in my career, in order to be aware of what was going on in the world. And I started this certificate program more than a year ago, and I was exposed to so many new technologies and sites that I had never needed to use. Sure, I had the feeling like I was behind, but I’d never needed to use those sites before, so I sat down and learned how to use them. And I got my passing marks in those classes. Am I still a “digital immigrant”? What does it mean, the distinction, if in the end I am able to deliver and compete at the same level as a “digital native”?
What I find more optimistic is not that the digital “immigrants” (again, a term I hate to describe this group) are at a disadvantage for growing up before the rise of a computerized world, but that they have been forced to acclimate, and are succeeding. Indeed, I think the behaviors and skills they developed to thrive in a non-digital world actually help them to succeed.
I grew up having to write long hand write my homework or type it on a typewriter. My research was in physical books or the second hand encyclopedia set my parents were able to afford. I had to organize my time to do my research- I couldn’t just wait to the last minute to pull something off the internet, even from a peer reviewed database. That research had to be prescheduled. And as invariably happened when I made a mistake or did procrastinate too much, I had to develop skills to make it work, stretching the meager resources that were available to me to pull through in a pinch. Even the research was more difficult- card catalogs are not the same as a keyword search. Techniques had to be developed to be efficient at searching, to using clunky microfilm machines, to stretching even the barest mention of a concept in an index page to hit a magic number of required sources in a term paper.
These were all techniques that served me through college, at the turn of the millenium. LIbrary databases were just becoming actually useful then, but of course so many of them were not full text in those days. The typewriter I had thankfully been able to consign to oblivion a few years prior in high school. As I went to graduate school, those databases only got better and the need to do physical research diminished, but the research and planning strategies honed from those analog days remained.
I feel like an old crank just writing that. Perhaps no skill I developed in the analog days really helped me all that much, wasn’t something a digital native couldn’t have developed on their own. But that just belies my point more- I learned. I grew up with the technology. And after I finished schooling and entered the workforce, I had to continue keeping up with technology in order to succeed, to progress in my career, in order to be aware of what was going on in the world. And I started this certificate program more than a year ago, and I was exposed to so many new technologies and sites that I had never needed to use. Sure, I had the feeling like I was behind, but I’d never needed to use those sites before, so I sat down and learned how to use them. And I got my passing marks in those classes. Am I still a “digital immigrant”? What does it mean, the distinction, if in the end I am able to deliver and compete at the same level as a “digital native”?
Hi Charles -- As someone who grew up with technology and had computers when I was in primary school, I think, if anyone is at a disadvantage, it is my generation. I hate to admit my parents are right, but we are so reliant on technology that we don't know what to do when we can't just Google something. I completely agree that digital immigrants are succeeding and are not disadvantaged.
ReplyDeleteAs for the terms digital native and digital immigrant - I don't care for those terms either. I think all these terms really mean are whether or not you grew up immersed in technology.