Myth of Digital Native part 2—Assumptions

This is part 2 of a series on the myth of the Digital Native--in case you missed part 1, click here.

  In the article, "The Digital Natives’ Debate:  a Critical Review of the Evidence," Authors Bennett, Maton and Kervin write that the claim for the existence of “digital natives” is based on two assumptions:

1. Young people considered to be of this generation “possess sophisticated knowledge of and skills with information technologies.
2. As a result of their immersion in technology from a young age, their learning styles and/or preferences differ significantly from earlier generations of students.

Today,  we will look at assumption #1.    Bennett, Maton, and Kervin found through a large scale student survey that technical skills are not universal, which is a major part of the first assumption.  Their research indicates that a subset of young people are very adept with information technologies, but that there is also a significant number who are not.  They go on to assert that by focusing attention on the group that is more adept, we run the risk of serious consequences for those who may need more training.  “It may be that there is as much variation within the digital native generation as between the generations.”

In “Are Digital Natives a Myth or Reality?  University Students’ Use of Digital Technologies,” authors Margaryan, Littlejohn, and Vojt found that, “students did not appear to understand the potential of technology to support learning.”  In their conclusions, they state that, “The results [of their study] lead us to conclude that students may not have the characteristics of epitomic global, connected, socially-networked technologically-fluent ‘digital natives’.”  They found that while students might have some idea of how to use technology for conventional activities, their understanding of the learning applications for these same technologies was limited.  Their findings “challenge the proposition that young people have sophisticated technology skills.”  

This isn’t to say that many young people are not extremely tech savvy, but what it does say is that we cannot assume that all young people are tech savvy, nor that all young people, or even a significant number of them, know how to apply technical skills to learning situations.  It is also not safe to assume that older people are somehow technologically deficient.  As educators, it is our job to first learn new skills if needed, and then to help students make appropriate technology/learning connections.  I say appropriate, because technology as bling is not a useful learning tool.  (See my earlier post about that here.)  We should not be teaching technology for its own sake, but rather enhancing the learning experience and content mastery with technology as a tool.  Next time we tackle the idea of multi-tasking as a learning characteristic/preference/ability of digital natives.

Picture of unicorn from wikipedia and labeled for reuse.

Bennett, SueMaton, KarlKervin, Lisa. "The ‘Digital Natives’ Debate: A Critical Review Of The Evidence." British Journal Of Educational Technology 39.5 (2008): 775-786. Professional Development Collection. Web. 5 May 2014.

Margaryan, Anoush, Allison Littlejohn, and Gabrielle Vojt. "Are digital natives a myth or reality? University students’ use of digital technologies." Computers & Education 56.2 (2011): 429-440.