Immigrant or Native...Will I Ever Really Know?
It seems that everywhere I go or look, technology is everywhere. Now, I am not innocent by any means, as much as I like to think. I also have fallen victim to the sudden influx of technology that overwhelms our society...but does that make me a digital native or a digital immigrant?
If I were to classify myself solely based on the year I was born (1992), Marc Prensky would say that I am a digital native. However, I did not grow up with technology readily available in my home (besides a TV...and years late a desktop Mac), and I did not know there was a function for the Mac until I was almost in fourth grade.
As I continue to try and understand the distinctions between a digital native and a digital immigrant, I can't help but be confused. Both Marc Prensky and the Huffington Post talk about the perception differences between digital natives and digital immigrants, and I find myself relating to characteristics in both. I cannot say that I am one exclusively. So, how can I determine if I am a digital native or a digital immigrant? Is it possible for people to be on the fence and identify with both groups, or do we really only belong to one of these groups? Thomas G. Plante, Ph. D., discusses in his article for Psychology Today about how he tried "to convince his grandparents that buying a telephone answering machine as well as a clothes dryer would be a good idea. They looked at me like I was talking in another language or that I was from another planet."
I remember the same look when I had to teach my father, not an antiquated man by any means, how to use the iPhone his company had given him. This is the man who had used a Nokia for as long as I could remember. Funny thing about this? I hadn't even had an iPhone yet but he assumed I knew how to use it because it was "of my generation."
Plante proposes an idea, one that is interesting to me as well: is learning to use and become more comfortable with new technology equivalent to learning a new language? In class, Dr. Bogad discussed that same notion, that we go through the same stages, but does this limit us to one group? Is our mindset really fixed based solely on how we were brought up with (or without) technology?
In the Net Day "Speak Up Day" Summary, it was concluded that "students are not just using technology differently today, but are approaching their lives and their daily activities differently because of technology." We broached this quote in class and broke it down in to understandable sound bites: between digital natives and digital immigrants there are processing differences, knowledge access differences, and sense-of-self differences, among many others. I did not realize how much technology has impacted our thinking of self in this generation, and it is while I think of myself in terms of the categories that we discussed in class do I begin to unravel the great mystery of "Immigrant or Native?"
I still cannot definitively answer the question because I fall somewhere between the two, but if we look at just how my thinking is, I would probably be classified as a digital native. Regardless, I still can relate to these kids who took a look at some of the first pieces of modern technology with Ellen Degeneres. I think we have all been there at some point.
If I were to classify myself solely based on the year I was born (1992), Marc Prensky would say that I am a digital native. However, I did not grow up with technology readily available in my home (besides a TV...and years late a desktop Mac), and I did not know there was a function for the Mac until I was almost in fourth grade.
As I continue to try and understand the distinctions between a digital native and a digital immigrant, I can't help but be confused. Both Marc Prensky and the Huffington Post talk about the perception differences between digital natives and digital immigrants, and I find myself relating to characteristics in both. I cannot say that I am one exclusively. So, how can I determine if I am a digital native or a digital immigrant? Is it possible for people to be on the fence and identify with both groups, or do we really only belong to one of these groups? Thomas G. Plante, Ph. D., discusses in his article for Psychology Today about how he tried "to convince his grandparents that buying a telephone answering machine as well as a clothes dryer would be a good idea. They looked at me like I was talking in another language or that I was from another planet."
I remember the same look when I had to teach my father, not an antiquated man by any means, how to use the iPhone his company had given him. This is the man who had used a Nokia for as long as I could remember. Funny thing about this? I hadn't even had an iPhone yet but he assumed I knew how to use it because it was "of my generation."
Plante proposes an idea, one that is interesting to me as well: is learning to use and become more comfortable with new technology equivalent to learning a new language? In class, Dr. Bogad discussed that same notion, that we go through the same stages, but does this limit us to one group? Is our mindset really fixed based solely on how we were brought up with (or without) technology?
In the Net Day "Speak Up Day" Summary, it was concluded that "students are not just using technology differently today, but are approaching their lives and their daily activities differently because of technology." We broached this quote in class and broke it down in to understandable sound bites: between digital natives and digital immigrants there are processing differences, knowledge access differences, and sense-of-self differences, among many others. I did not realize how much technology has impacted our thinking of self in this generation, and it is while I think of myself in terms of the categories that we discussed in class do I begin to unravel the great mystery of "Immigrant or Native?"
I still cannot definitively answer the question because I fall somewhere between the two, but if we look at just how my thinking is, I would probably be classified as a digital native. Regardless, I still can relate to these kids who took a look at some of the first pieces of modern technology with Ellen Degeneres. I think we have all been there at some point.
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