A Monkey Swinging between the Vines of Digital Native and Digital Immigrant
(Looking at Technology these days and what its really all about)
For anyone not in the techno speak (and I am certainly not one as seen by what I JUST said...) a Digital Native is someone like my son who from the moment of his birth has grown up plugged in and turned on. Computers, applications, browser windows, games (educational, personal, and entertainment), on demand access to the world all at his fingertips or button mash or finger swipe. I would be what you call a Digital Immigrant, though that itself seems like a laugh since when I was young that's when computers actually began.
I am a very learned Immigrant of this Digital Age, but yet still an Immigrant. Growing up I used apple floppy disks and start up codes, dot matrix printers. I remember when e-mails and internet where government use only. Computer games were originally educational as in 'Oregon Trail' and 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago' (bootup password= 'spy'). I remember using the typing program that George R. Martin uses to write Game of Thrones on. When Hotmail began, first having an 'e-mail' account and reading the daily 'dog and cat jokes' (no they were not about dogs and cats... they were lewd off base daily jokes you could subscribe to be e-mailed to you daily for a laugh). I remember the transition from 3.5 hard disks to CDs to when 1 GB of a junk drive seemed ENORMOUS! I grew up with every stage it seems of technological growth yet it is my son who is considered the Native while I am the Immigrant.
Yet so what makes me an Immigrant? Is it myself being stuck in the old ways? Not constantly adapting to all of the current technology. I remember the shift from Myspace to Facebook. Everyone lauds and makes fun of the old system... but does anyone remember if you were tech savvy with code you could really get down and personalize your page on Myspace where now a days every face book is a generic carbon copy of the next. (Yes I am aware I just used a term a Digital Native is scratching their head over. Carbon Copy: Once upon a time when everything was paper, paper to make multiple copies of a sheet had double and triple copies immediately behind them that when you wrote on the top sheet the information was 'stained' onto the bottom two sheets with carbon impressing.)
Is it because instead of accepting every new format, page, option, style that crosses my path I act selective in which new approaches to technology deserve my time instead of making room for all? I blog when I have time, I Facebook to keep in touch with friends and loved ones overseas, I use Google Voice and Skype for international calling, texting. I surf through freeware finding the things that have a purpose suitable for my life to make it easier. -but what I don't do is tweet (or twat/twatting as I call it), I do not #hashtag, or Flickr, I enjoy YouTube but do not contribute to YouTube, I don't 'Wikia', and until recently if I had not needed it for my job, I still would have had no clue how to Weebly much less what it was (now I do...).
I look at all these things at the fingertips or these days the voice recognition of my son and wonder if he's so much better being a Native? What has he lost in this life he automatically grew up in. More so the fact that he is only a Digital Native for one fact and one fact alone: he was born in a First World Country. As Digital Native and Digital Immigrant is not a universal concept that can be applied across the world and socio-economic boundaries. Is this an occurance where the luxury of being born in a First World Country is actually stealing and taking something away from him and his childhood.
I get it, I understand the ease, the assistance it provides in ones daily life. The fact the that our children can now be called Digital Natives though I wonder one thing...
Is it too much a part of their lives?
