I have tried to put some sense into understanding where the discussion of ‘digital natives’ vs. ‘digital immigrants’ stems from. And I don’t mean the basic definition that the former – in the most simplistic terms – are those growing up surrounded by technology and the internet.

What I mean is more concerned with why the notion was coined in the first place. I seem to have found part of the answer in Dworschak’s article.

“The example of the dot shows how normal the Internet has become, and debunks the idea that it is a special world in which special things happen. Media are used by the masses if they have some relevance to everyday life, (…) and they are used for aims that people already had anyway.”

This could suggest that before advanced information and communication technology permanently present in our lives became the omnipresent reality, such notion was revered and dreamt of by the biggest brains on the planet. It was the time when possible uses of the internet and likely improvements to every man’s life where almost limitless. It would seem that all too often, however, people tend to treat the internet simply as a different (more convenient, perhaps) way of performing the tasks they would do otherwise offline.

All in all, the term ‘digital natives’ seems valid and worthy of in-depth research during the current transition period. The transition being from no or little technology present in our lives to the stage where technology permeates our lives to the extent when it is hard to imagine living without it, or when lives start to depend on it.

(I wonder what term in the future the then-ubiquitous digital natives will give to the technologically impaired oldies’ minorities…)

The digital natives of the future such as the 20-month old Clementine:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdjjhf_when-a-baby-discovers-the-ipad_tech