Digital Natives

We had a guy in the chair today talking about "digital natives versus digital immigrants."

He said everyone over 40 is a digital immigrant - someone whose life-view was formed prior to the overwhelming involvement of computers in our daily lives.

So I am a digital immigrant. I may be fluent; I may be able to achieve at a high level in the digital culture; but I am an immigrant nonetheless.

The digital natives - roughly speaking, anyone born after 1970 - have grown up with computers, digital cameras, and cellular phones. They learned video games along with hopscotch; their childhoods are documented with video tape rather than Super8; they likely grew up with a TV in their bedroom, and rather than three networks plus a handful of independents, they have always known dozens of cable TV networks, along with 24-hour movie channels, home shopping, and infomercials.

Most likely, the digital natives don't know what it's like to read a daily newspaper with zeal. As for their music, the soundtracks of their lives are full of computer wizardry. And of course, they share their music via MP3, not a delicate plastic disc in a square cardboard jacket.

Most of this doesn't matter much, except in the degree to which there is a difference between the experience of a digital native versus a digital immigrant. That degree of difference seems to grow every day. It seems to matter more every day. As much as I felt the divide between my parents' experience and my own, I feel a greater divide exists between my generation and the next, not to mention the generation after that, and after that...

There will always be fresh 18-year-olds. Here I am, growing more distant from 18 every day. How much does this matter? A great deal. A great, huge, hairy deal.