I am aged 60 and first saw internet-like technology (actually the UK's Joint Academic Network (JANET)) used in 1982, where IIRC the whole comp sci department gathered round a terminal to watch a file being ftp'd from somewhere in the US. I have used computers ever since.<p>In many ways I have deeper IT skills than many digital natives in terms of understanding what is going behind the screen although I'd be the first to admit that as my reflexes (and mind?) have aged I'm slower at navigating or discovering interfaces than I used to be.<p>But when the 'digital native' thing comes up I prefer to think of myself as a 'digital pioneer'. I was there on the electronic frontier, sort of, when it was still a sparsely populated wilderness. We could explore and in some cases create our own digital worlds. Now the big walled gardens are there instead, populated with the digital natives, many of whom are creatives and power users even if the majority are happy to consume. They will find or create aspects of the technology that I could probably never conceive of. But some of us remember being out in that digital wilderness, looking at the clear skies and snow covered peaks on the distant horizons, and wondering what we could achieve in this brave new world.
Digital aptitude is really just a willingness to try things with technology. Wanting to do something and so trying to make the computer do it until it does.<p>It's a mindset, and in my experience not one which is related to year of birth. My granny is in her mid nineties and loves computers - she plays around in photoshop, produces newsletters, uses the computer to do digital art, writes emails. She's always been that way - an early adopter of technology. Every time I see her she has a new kitchen gadget.<p>Contrast that to my grandparents on the other side - similar age, but completely different mindset. They both died basically having never used a computer. One real standout moment was when I was trying to teach my granddad to use a DVD player. The conceptual understanding required to equate pressing a button on the remote control and the moving selection box on the menu was missing - so even just saying "go down to 'play movie' and select it" was out of his understanding.<p>I see it amongst my generation as well - I'm in my early thirties and have always been a computer person - tinkering, installing new things, writing software, reinstalling my OS just because I can. But not all my "digital native" friends are like that. Some love computers, some tolerate them. Pretty much everyone can use an iphone, but not everyone is interested in exploring its settings to see what else it can do.<p>So our generation may be "digital natives" in the sense that I doubt there's anyone my age who can't use a phone (or understand that button presses equate to menu selections - although that may not be the case with touchscreens). But we're not a generation of techies. Most people don't care. Human nature doesn't change that much in a generation.
Knowing how to put a footer on a Word document does not make you a digital native, and not knowing does not make one a digital immigrant.<p>Knowing to look it up though, does.
If there was ever a digital native generation, i expect its the generation that grew up on desktop computers but not smartphones/ipads.<p>Using a desktop computer is not all that much like using a cellphone, and desktop computers are quickly becoming specialized devices.
I think judging someone's understanding of technology by their aptitude of ... editing a word document may not be the most appropriate way of doing it?<p>At best, this test measures the ability of someone editing a word document, and poorly at that.
I haven't touched MS word this millenium. I'm on Linux generating pdf via either *tex or org mode. Pretty sure I can find how to do this, but I'll be slow as hell, as I probably already have to search how to launch word to begin with ;)
I am the author of the original post. I have subsequently put more than 20,000 law students, lawyers, paralegals, etc. through assessments and trainings via Procertas.<p>The empirical evidence is undeniable: basic competence with core tools remains poor.<p>This is a solvable problem. We have all manner of opportunities to integrate foundational tech training into our educational curriculum.<p>I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
Back in the mid-90s we "young people" used napster to download songs to play at parties and took digital photos that were uploaded to a website for everyone to laugh at the next day.<p>People said "look at the youth of today - they understand technology. <i>Follow the youth of today, they will show you the future.</i>"<p>I thought that was right till I met other young people who had no idea.<p>The real answer is <i>follow the software literate</i>. Follow those skilled, trained and working with / on software each day.
I think (no data again) that if he assessed digital natives by their ability to work with video - capturing, editing, self-presenting - he might actually see the difference. Assuming that they would work better with GUIs from the 90s is almost as absurd as assuming innate programming ability.
The impact of smart phones on the "digital natives" who lack basic comprehension skills will likely persist well into their lifetimes. The impact on governance will be profound and deep. And detrimental to our society.
My SO (born 1981, first use of computer 1999) left her job and started at university again in 2019. She now is studying with people born around the time she first used a computer.<p>Watching from the sidelines I can attest the fact that nearly none of her fellow students know how to efficiently use search engines, digital knowledge repositories or stuff like pubmed.<p>They also have a hard time working collaboratively in a digital fashion with tools like MS Office 365 or Google Docs.<p>Her neice is the same. She is 18,still in school and has no ability to create a thesis in Word. TOC, headlines, footnotes, citations, footers, nothing. Either they never were taught this in school or neither her neice nor nearly all my SO's fellow students thought this to be a relevant skill.<p>But. And here is the catch. Together with her there also started few other students around her age. They also never learned the skills necessary to efficiently navigate digital research and usage of Office tools.<p>My SO learned these skills because of her former job as well as genuine interest in these things.<p>So from anecdata I would not differentiate by date of birth. I would make the differentiation with the question if people used devices for producing stuff or "just" consuming stuff.
The original conception of the term 'digital native' was a very specific educational hypothesis.<p>It seemed to really catch the public's imagination though as a catchphrase.<p>Notably, the original educational usage was basically wrong too (in a nutshell it was saying that we had to totally rebuild all education because new kids can use computers natively, which is right for the wrong reasons).<p>I think the popular usage is because for older people (outside the older people who created the hardware and software that powers the modern world) the world has radically changed and they have little idea what's going on. The young people they know probably are, on average, much better at tech than them.<p>But humans don't deal with averages very well. They prefer to stereotype: "woman are short, men are tall" Vs the complex reality that the average tries to capture in a single number (age, ethnicity, nutrition, health).<p>There's also the weird fact that many natives are "worse" at their own language than immigrants since they grew up with slang, dialects, accents etc. Again averages covering up a complex reality.
Back in the 1990s I used WordPerfect and would edit the codes to adjust documents. I wonder what that makes me? Something more than a digital native? My kids grew up with computers, but come to me for everything computer related. I try to teach them how to search for their answers, but it’s usually faster to just ask me.
Reminded me of this piece, which is important:<p><a href="http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/" rel="nofollow">http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-comput...</a><p>Sorry, took me a few days to find the right keywords to unearth it.
What kind of hot garbage is this?<p>> the Word module<p>I have used Word between 1994 and the late 2000s, and then I stuck with my copy of Word 97 (or 2000), and it didn't yet have the changes/comments function yet (afaik, or I never used it). So by adopting too early and writing my stuff in latex I failed this arbitrary test. Great ;)<p>More seriously though, this shouldn't be too surprising to anyone who is of that age. While some of us learned the ins and outs of computers in the late 90s, the bulk of our classmates could write an email and that's that. Maybe my generation where I live (in the VERY narrow sense, of being +/- 3 years old) was especially lucky as somehow the web just came to prominence when we were in our teens and it was so new and everyone was excited that you at least got an email address and used computers at school for a bit. But real knowledge was rare, so I can imagine even 5 years later there was less incentive and it's already been some kind of commodity...
<i>"90% of people don’t know how to use CTRL+F to find a word in a document or web page."</i><p>Should they have to?<p>I still think Apple had it right with the original Mac keyboard. No function keys, no CNTL key, no command line. Everything had to be graphical. Then they went to UNIX.
If there's the Digital Native Gen, then there sure must be the Digital Founders Gen. The latter having fought the hard fight for open systems, protocols, and formats with an hacker's attitude akin to a modern form of humanism and enlightenment while the former carelessly giving in to big media and social, and on the brink to drop the ball and loose it all.
The main benefits from being a digital native are not knowing computers, but the results. Which might only be because they are more pronounced in the young -<p>ie. Less drink driving accidents (Uber), they commit less sex crimes (Access to Adult material), access to heath information.<p>What is interesting is they are kinda the first generation with IQ's less than their parents in a hundred years. This would not be expected given they are living more abstracted lives.<p>This is where the article fails. Digital native should have more abstract minds and learn abstract things quicker. Not automatically know them. That's a curriculum fail. If they are failing to learn abstract ideas at the speed of digital immigrants (their parents) then there's a problem. That's what the IQ drop implies but the article doesn't seem to indicate either way.