Digital Natives

The term digital native describes a person who has grown up in the Information Age. The term "digital native" was coined by Marc Prensky, an American writer, speaker and technologist who wrote several articles referencing this subject. This term was specifically applied to the generation that grew up in the "digital age", predominantly regarding individuals born from 1980 onwards, namely Millennials, Generation Z, and Generation Alpha. It proposes that individuals from these demographic cohorts can quickly and comfortably locate, consume and send digital information through electronic devices and platforms such as computers, mobile phones, and social media. The ideas underlying the term "digital natives" says that they are distinguished from digital immigrants, people who grew up in a world dominated by print and television, because they were born before the advent of the Internet. Supposedly, the digital generation grew up with increased confidence in the technology that they were encircled and in which they were engulfed. Proponents of this term believe that this occurred in part because of their predecessors growing interest in a subject that was previously unknown and that, due to their upbringing, this digital generation of youth became fixated on their technologies as it became an ingrained, integral and essential way of life. Prensky concluded that due to the volume of daily interactions with technology, the digital native generation had developed a completely different way of thinking. They further believe that though the brains of these youths may not have changed physically, pathways and thinking patterns had evolved and their brains had changed to be physiologically different than those of the bygone era. Repeated exposure had helped grow and stimulate certain regions of the brain, while other unused parts of the brain were reduced in size. The terms digital native and digital immigrant are often used to describe the digital generation gap in terms of the ability of technological use among people born after 1980 and those born before. The term digital native is a highly contested concept, being considered by many education researchers as a persistent myth not founded on empirical evidence, and many argue for a more nuanced approach in understanding the relationship between digital media, learning and youth.

Insekeurig - 2017-10-20T00:00:00.000000Z

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