I’ve had conversations with people about the digital native. I’ve used the term myself many times, but have we ever thought about what it REALLY means to be a digital native? This term drives me a little crazy because I think people have the wrong idea about what it means. I am not a digital native. I’m a digital immigrant. I was born in 1976 and it wasn’t until about 1992 that I started hearing about the internet. It wasn’t until about 1996 (or 97) that I got my first email at UIC (University of Illinois in Chicago). I wasn’t born into the digital culture, I slowly wandered into it and then made it my home. From my perspective I see the natives taking digital culture for granted and it seems like they really don’t understand what it does for them or have any idea of how it works.
Let’s make an analogy with language. A native speaker can fluently traverse a language, using metaphor and slang and all sorts of linguistic acrobatics. Do they understand the mechanics or the intricacies of the language? Not really. Is this a bad thing? Not really, depends on the situation. A non-native speaker has to learn all the rules and mechanics of the language. Not only do they learn how to speak it, they know why they speak it the way they do. Does this make them better speakers? Not really, it depends.
In my own experience I’ve had a lot of kids come to me (I work in a school) asking me for computer help but when I try to help them, they give me these blank looks like I’m speaking a different language. They don’t understand the difference between file formats or application versions. They don’t know what DRM is and how it effects them even though most of them use iPods, iTunes and buy music from the iTunes music store. These are the same kids that have myspace/facebook accounts, text message, instant message and have grown up immersed in the digital culture in general. These are the digital natives, yet they have no understanding of their digital environment. They can use it, but only at what seems to be a superficial level.
I’m not saying all kids are like this. I’ve learned A LOT from kids (thanks Robert, I’ve learned a ton about command line thanks to you) but I’ve also taught kids a lot. It’s a two way street, the information is not flowing in just one direction. I say this because I feel like whenever I read about the digital native it feels like they are being put up on a pedestal, like they are something that we immigrants should aspire to be. Digital natives are neither good or bad, they just are. We should study them to understand how they navigate the digital environment and resources, but I don’t think we should necessarily try emulate them.
The reason why I bring this up is because I was catching up on my feeds the other day when I saw another post about the digital natives. I can’t remember who posted it (Michael Stephens, Jenny Levine, Jessamyn or another librarian blogger. (I need to weed my feeds.)) and maybe I was reading it wrong, but I got that feeling like, “we need to be more like the digital natives.” I don’t think we need to be more like them. They (digital natives) have strengths and weaknesses and we (digital immigrants) have strengths and weaknesses. We complement each other, and that is the way it should be.
P.S. I’ve been watching the digital natives project and it’s a great site to find out more info on the dn. It’s a wiki so contributions can be made. The site sort of reminds me of a nature show, like we are trying to observe the digital native in the wild.
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