We live in a world where technology has become an almost essential part of peoples’ lives. Communicating between people from every corner of the planet has never been so easy. The one thing that comes to mind, however, is trying to understand and distinguish those born into the technological age, the digital natives, and those who have had to adapt to it, the digital immigrants. It is something that goes far beyond the idea of it simply being one being born into the technological age while the other one has had to adapt to it.
DeGraff (2014) describes digital natives to view life in a more “horizontal” way than digital immigrants. This means that they view the world in a much less prejudiced way. DeGraff also explains that digital natives hold sceptical and critical views on social institutions such as the government. I completely agree with this as the internet allows us to see other peoples’ opinions and how they react to things very easily. From personal experience, I’ve come across many people of this generation who are indeed very critical about the government but also lean to a very equal mind-set. However, DeGraff goes on to say that this generation isn’t very goal-oriented and that it’s the digital immigrants who are the goal-oriented generation. This is also something that is relatable as natives aren’t necessarily ready to start a career, while digital immigrants can pressure natives into getting jobs and working very hard for a living. Adding to that, digital immigrants can also come off as brutal as they are so oriented on doing things like finishing important projects and doing deals with other companies, which can make the native feel very pressured.
On the other hand, David White (2008) describes the two entities as “residents” and “visitors” as opposed to immigrants and natives. The resident is someone who spends a lot of time on the internet, such as using social media websites, while the visitor is someone who uses the internet to buy train tickets. White (2008) goes on to say that the visitors won’t necessarily blog or share their opinions on the internet. This isn’t necessarily true as many people who could fall into the “visitor” category have facebook accounts, blog and share their opinions on thousands of different topics everyday. Therefore, it is possible that some visitors could be transitioning in the realm of the residents.
To conclude, this discussion between natives and immigrants or residents and visitors has no easy explanation. It is definitely true that the natives are more horizontal and that the immigrants are very goal-oriented, but how White (2008) describes their use of the internet isn’t necessarily true. It can be argued that the immigrants are slowly integrating with the natives because the immigrants also blog and post pictures on their social media accounts. Likewise, not all people of the “native” generation live on the internet as some have started to delete their social media accounts, thus moving away from the internet world.
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References:
White, D. (2008) TALL blog. Accessed 09/10/15 from http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/
DeGraff, J. (2014) Huffington Post. Accessed 09/10/15 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-degraff/digital-natives-vs-digita_b_5499606.html
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