I was born prior to most of the modern day technology youth have access to today. Although I was not born into this technology, my early childhood years saw the transition into today's modern technologies. Due to this, I think of myself more as a digital native than a digital immigrant. Though I was born in a time when cellphones and laptops were not quite as ubiquitous as they are today, I spent most of my time with the forms of technology that were available to me. As a 6 or 7 year old, I would play Nintendo 64 or Playstation or Gameboy, which were new and advanced for the time. By the time I was in middle school, I was spending a lot of time on the desktop computer, on websites such as Myspace (shoutout to Tom!). I developed the 'native' skills of twitch speed or parallel processing while going down Wikipedia rabbit holes while playing flash games in another tab.
Are today's youth digital natives? In the debate of digital nativism between boyd and Prensky, I wholeheartedly agree with boyd's perspective. Digital nativism is the idea some generations are digital natives, meaning they naturally adept at navigating and understanding digital technologies and systems. On the other hand, the existence of a digital native implies the idea of digital immigrants, or those who are foreign to the digital familiarity experienced by natives. In chapter 7 of danah boyd's It's Complicated , she discusses the idea of digital nativism and how it is actually dangerous mindset to have. To start, boyd discusses that the idea of nativism vs immigrant truthfully stems from the fear created by generational gaps which are increasingly illustrated through technology use. She paraphrases Barlow when she discusses that, "the implicit fear that stems from the generational gap that has emerged around technology." The idea of generational tensi...
I would agree with you, I also feel as if my digital literacy skills grew as things were evolving around me. I definitely remember playing many classic video games on my Gameboy, and Tom! lol
ReplyDeleteChristian, I totally get where you're coming from. My ColecoVision was put to the test, until I got tired of it. (I have no idea who Tom is though.) And love how you utilized the word ubiquitous. (I actually had to look up that one.)
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