Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

Digital natives are people who were born after or during the basic commencement of digital technology as well as those who have interacted with digital technologies from the past ages; thus, they possess a deep understanding of the way it works. The term digital natives could also be used to refer to the generation of people who were born in 1960s or later. This term is applied when referring to people who were born in the era of technology – the recent part of the 20-th century and up to date. The term ‘Digital Natives’ could also refer to people who appreciate the importance of technology and implement it to their advantage with the intension of making an impact.

Technology has contributed greatly into the world’s development as well as made the work easier. Numerous car accidents in the olden days have substantially been minimized by the use of technology. Most of the modern vehicles are fitted with technological devices that are able to react before an impact occurs. For instance, among these are the air bags that pop up in front of one’s head in case of a collision accident and reduce the severity of an accident. Furthermore, the importance of technology in our day-to-day life is evident; for instance, flights are controlled using a device called radar. Technology is also used for numerous other activities that we undertake on a daily basis.

In my personal life, technology has helped me in knowing the world and its daily happenings. Through the Internet, television sets, and movies, one is capable of learning the cultures of other people. This helps one in a better understanding of other people as well as in appreciating and embracing them more. In work places, technology has helped in keeping ones record by simply creating a folder in a computer where one can keep all his/her records. In the past, one had to put all the documents in physical files, which was extremely cumbersome and highly susceptible to damage. Thus, technology has made work easier when it comes to saving and retrieving any documents. Documents that are scanned and saved in the flash disks are readily available without necessarily carrying the files wherever one goes. This is more appropriate when the copies of the documents are needed urgently since Internet connection is a common occurrence in modern days unlike in the olden days.

Students are at an advantage when it comes to doing research since they can access all the materials they require by simply browsing through the Internet. This is well displayed in Picture 1 below, where students are busy carrying out a research on the Internet. Most careers have a strong dependency on technology. That is to say, they cannot do without the Internet. In case of any research that could be required, Internet usage is mandatory. Internet is also beneficial in the evaluation of service delivery of other competing firms. Television and the Internet are particularly essential when it comes to advertisements of products; one can know which product is the best, its price, and availability.

Digital Immigrants are people who were born prior to the existence of digital technologies but later adopted it in their life. All the digital immigrants are older people; they were born before the digital age and are new to the Internet; they are over the age of 28. Prensky suggests that the difference between digital immigrants and digital natives is the basic factor in the indicted declination of the education system in the US. He further argues that the present education system in the US is not tailored to serve today’s students. In bridging the lingual and cultural division between the students and their teachers, Prensky suggests that digital immigrants are making multiple attempts to teach digital natives using the methods that are perceived as being rather invalid. He recommends that, in curbing this problem, the teachers have to change their method of teaching (Prensky 1).

In conclusion, technology has helped in making work easier as well as in providing people with all the necessary information. However, it has created a divide between digital immigrants and digital natives. In order to eliminate the divide and have a successful correlation between these two groups of people, educators need to learn the language that is most familiar with digital natives. This can be achieved by speeding up the instructions and providing a ‘random access.’