"I’m 53. I feel the same way about it. I don't claim it as mine, even though I was here first, watched it grow up…I may not inhabit it in the sense that I feel required to check in on Foursquare or share every damned atom of information, but this mindset is not limited to people who grew up think they have the wisdom of the ages because they had a hotmail account when they were ten…

Perhaps “uncomfortably” worked better in the original Polish; maybe there’s an idiomatic implication to the word that would help me understand him better. Oh, right: global culture is more important than language, so nevermind. But while every system can be replaced, it is wishful thinking to believe this means it’s replaced by something better. Unless he equates efficiency and better suited to his needs as “better.” Isn’t there a moral component to consider? Whether or not something is good? Or are “more opportunities” sufficient? You can Godwin that construct with ease."

"We grew up with the Internet and on the Internet. This is what makes us different; this is what makes the crucial, although surprising from your point of view, difference: we do not ‘surf’ and the internet to us is not a ‘place’ or ‘virtual space’. The Internet to us is not something external to reality but a part of it: an invisible yet constantly present layer intertwined with the physical environment. We do not use the Internet, we live on the Internet and along it. If we were to tell our bildnungsroman to you, the analog, we could say there was a natural Internet aspect to every single experience that has shaped us. We made friends and enemies online, we prepared cribs for tests online, we planned parties and studying sessions online, we fell in love and broke up online. The Web to us is not a technology which we had to learn and which we managed to get a grip of. The Web is a process, happening continuously and continuously transforming before our eyes; with us and through us…"

[Update: Response by Alan Jacobs: http://ayjay.tumblr.com/post/18029873515/participating-in-cultural-life-is-not-something ]

[Update 2: Lengthy response, take-down: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/12/0212/022212.html ]

[Chaser: http://metalab.harvard.edu/2012/02/twitter-nprs-morning-edition-and-dreams-of-flatland/ ]

[Cross-posted by Alexis Madrigal: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/we-the-web-kids/253382/ ]

"This photo may not seem like much – just another shot of Omotesando kiddies giving it the “niii”. Except that this was taken by my 22 month old daughter, using a Canon dSLR. That she can lift something that heavy, look through the viewfinder, align the shot, find the button and press it with enough force to trigger the shot, and then peers at the back screen to view what she’s taken is at first glance pretty amazing. Like a kid cocking a Magnum. This is not proud parent post – it merely follows in the wake of many parents commenting about their babies/infants use of tech – swiping/jabbing/drooling on touch screen devices, the ‘my kid can use an iPad’ moment.

This are the tools that make up our children’s landscape – and they are as natural as forks and electronic calculators and electric car windows are to you and me.

At that age we mimic, if there’s enough pay-off we rote learn, and if there’s enough payoff we evolve that learning."

"Over the past week I've twice heard twenty-somethings wonder whether kids growing up today, kids who were practically born with iPhones in hand, will still have the capacity for wonder.<br />
<br />
Yesterday as a present for his first day of second grade I brought home an erasable gel pen for my iPhone savvy six year old. After a brief demonstration, he spontaneously hugged me, "I've been waiting for this pen my entire life!"<br />
<br />
I think the kids are alright."<br />
<br />
[via: http://bobulate.com/post/10298783599/over-the-past-week-ive-twice-heard ]

"Underpinning a disdain for social media in higher education is the assumption that incoming students have an inherent aptitude for new technologies"<br />
<br />
"If you took a soldier from a thousand years ago and put them on a battlefield, they'd be dead," Howard Rheingold, a professor teaching virtual community and social media at Stanford University, told me one morning via Skype. "If you took a doctor from a thousand years ago and put them in a modern surgical theater, they would have no idea what to do. Take a professor from a thousand years ago and put them in a modern classroom, they would know where to stand and what to do."

"So, in conclusion, first, there’s no evidence of a clear-cut digital divide. Use of technology varies with age, but it does so predictably, over the whole age span. And secondly, although younger people are more likely to be positive about technology, there is evidence that a good attitude to technology, at any age, correlates with good study habits."

"Where Selvadurai is interested in the space between two human cultural identities, I suppose I am interested in the space where human and artificial cultures overlap. (“Artificial” is wrong; feels—what? Prejudiced? Colonial? Anthropocentric? Carboncentric?)<br />
<br />
There are no digital natives but the devices themselves; no digital immigrants but the devices too. They are a diaspora, tentatively reaching out into the world to understand it and themselves, and across the network to find and touch one another. This mapping is a byproduct, part of the process by which any of us, separate and indistinct so long, find a place in the world."

"Prensky’s logic falls down for me when I see older folk - those who were clearly born before most people had even heard of a microchip - behave with just as much “native-ness” as many of their Gen-Y counterparts.  Many of the cleverest, most insightful technology users I’ve ever met are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and should - according to Prensky - be speaking with an almost unrecognizable “digital accent”; and yet they don’t.  So I’m convinced that age has very little to do with it.  I’ve seen 80 years olds who can surf the web effectively, use a digital camera, carry their music around on an iPod and use a mobile phone.  And I’ve seen teenagers that can’t figure out how to Google a piece of information properly, don’t realise that Wikipedia can be edited, and have no idea how to listen to a podcast."

"Our text-based environment, w/ its countless abbreviations & emoticons & bits of slang, has come us to define us culturally. For those suffering RSI, the constant output & input streams of text have even come to define us physically.<br />
<br />
This is where we are today. In short, text rules, & if you can write effectively (as distinct from writing well), you rule too…<br />
<br />
Your children will know a very different way of relating to people who are not physically present. It will change the way they work, maintain friendships, relate to family members, fall in love, & experience the world. It will change their sense of self, & self-worth. It may be a boon, or it may be harmful. Most likely, it’ll be a bit of both, because after all, it’s still about people.<br />
My generation will be at something of a loss when this new world comes about… [Unable to] compete with the telepresence-native adults that the children of today will grow up to be."

"question, though, is: distraction from what? & also: What’s inherently wrong with distraction?…What that framing forgets, though, is that the other side of fragmentation can be focus: the kind of deep-dive, myopic-in-a-good-way, almost Zen-like concentration that sparks to life when intellectual engagement couples with emotional affinity…Formal education, as we’ve framed it, is not only about finding ways to learn more about the things we love, but also, equally, about squelching our aversion to the things we don’t — all in the ecumenical spirit of generalized knowledge…The web inculcates a follow your bliss approach to learning that seeps, slowly, into the broader realm of information; under its influence, our notion of knowledge is slowly shedding its normative layers…Community, after all, needs the normative to function; the question is where we draw the line between the interest and the imperative…what we really want from digital world = permission to be impulsive."

"With their boundless curiosity, fertile imagination, and natural mastery of the art of self-directed learning, children have much to teach adults about creativity and innovation. That’s perhaps even more true with today’s “digital natives,” says developmental psychologist Edith Ackermann, whose work explores—and exploits—the intersections of play, learning, design, and technology. An educator and researcher, Ackermann has consulted for LEGO and the LEGO Learning Institute for more than 20 years and worked under the direction of Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist renowned for his studies on children at play, at the Centre International d’Epistémologie Génétique. She has taught at Harvard, MIT, and other universities."

"I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

"In sum, then, I think “we” are putting broken carts before the horses. “We” are concentrating too much on the “why change” argument without first fully and clearly articulating what it is “we” want from schools. Furthermore, the “why change” arguments, I argue (meta?), are fundamentally flawed. [The “Digital Natives” Argument, The Economics Argument, The Business Argument] There are lots of reasons for the institution of schooling to be transformed. Likewise, there are lots of reasons to consider the affordances of ubiquitous computing for learning. I ask you to help me think through those reasons in ways that are well-informed and logical…especially those of you with whom I hope to have fully maximized face-to-face experiences this weekend at Educon. I look forward to deliberating with many of you there!"

"Another key finding is that

"Surely s/he knew that the 21st Century writer learns as much from the 21st Century reader as the reader does from the writer. (Because 21st Century readers — the best ones, anyway — write with the writer. Just look at Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman’s blog, all the references he makes in his writing to what his readers are saying in comments. Look at Rolling Stones’ Matt Taibbi having conversations with his readers in the space beneath his articles — you know, those silly “forum”-like things. Just look.)

"I can understand why the thought of spending four years at a university could raise a native eyebrow. universities are emblematic of a different, much older understanding of power. they are meant to be an oasis of access to knowledge and influence in contrast to a world where access is withheld. they provide libraries full of information, and allow students to rub elbows with professors who don't return emails. but as access to knowledge and influence flattens, universities seem less like oases and more like training camps."

"Those who have shaped the nation's understanding of young people are not nearly as famous as their subjects, however. That's a shame, for these experts are colorful characters in their own right. Some are scholars, and some aren't. Many can recall watching the Beatles on a black-and-white television, and some grew up just before Barney the purple dinosaur arrived. Most can entertain an audience, though a few prefer to comb through statistics.

"It is not enough to know how to send text messages, use word processing tools, post to blogs, use Facebook etc. We all need to be able to to use these technologies to locate, analyze, evaluate and synthesize information that is relevant to our lives and work. Clearly, this is a fundamentally different perspective than the one put forward in the net generation discourse and it is supported by some excellent research that has been undertaken by OECD CERI."

"There is very little consensus of opinion and scholarship about whether generational differences exist that are worth taking into consideration in the workplace, colleges, and universities, and other contexts. The gross generalizations based on weak survey research and the speculation of profit-oriented consultants should be treated with extreme caution in a research and development context."

"The Ashridge study found, among other things:

“it's important to realize that most teens are engaging with social media without any deep understanding of the underlying dynamics or structure. Just because they understand how to use the technology doesn't mean that they understand the information ecology that surrounds it. Most teens don't have the scaffolding for thinking about their information practices. ... because young folks pick up a technology before you do doesn't inherently mean that they understand it better than you do. Or that they have a way of putting it into context. What they're doing is not inherently more sophisticated – it's simply different. They're coming of age in a culture where these structures are just a given. They take them for granted. And they repurpose them to meet their needs. But they don't necessarily think about them. Educators have a critical role when it comes to helping youth navigate social media. You can help them understand how to make sense of what they're seeing.”

"The fine line between what's worth documenting and what's not is a hard one to define. We immediately assume that the most important, the biggest, the most incredible moments are those that should be recorded. But it's these very moments that are best to experience live, with our full focus."

Inspiring.

"You might expect that my workshops are teeming with digital natives. But in my experience digital natives are the exception rather than the rule.

"danah boyd: Many of those who use these terms often do so with the best of intentions, valorizing youth engagement with digital media to highlight the ways in which youth are not dumb, dependent, or incapable. Yet, by reinforcing distinctions between generations, we reinforce the endemic age segregation that is plaguing our society. Many social and civic ills stem from the ways that we separate people based on age. If we want to curtail bullying and increase political participation, we need to stop segmenting and segregating."

"I think it's our fault as adults--particularly adults who are parents, educators, and media makers--for not making an effort to understand the Internet from a kid's point of view and for preventing kids from having the time and space to mess around in ways that encourage them to learn to evaluate what they come across online." "If kids are doing things online that seem unproductive or problematic, we don't feel that the answer is to ban the media. Instead we think that it is important to look at and try to shape the underlying social issues. That may be the commercialization of online spaces, lack of connection between kids and teachers, or the fact that academic knowledge seems irrelevant to many kids. It is rarely something that is being driven by the technology alone."

"

"Futures of Learning is a collective blog dedicated to the topic of new media and learning. The members of the blog are part of a project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, that is conducting an international survey of research in the field. We are focusing on two areas. One is an international review of research on how people are adopting digital and networked media. The second area is a review of learning institutions that are incorporating new media in innovative ways. We welcome suggestions for literature and programs that we should be looking at!"

"There are plenty of people my own age (25) or younger that are at the same level (perhaps even further behind) than those twice their age. In fact, age has nothing to do with this, there are many high level and highly influential bloggers/social media power users that span demographics. The divide exists between those who have dove in and actively use the innovative tools of communication that have changed our world forever, and those who have not."

"Consider all the pundits, professors, and pop critics who have wrung their hands over the inadequacies of the so-called digital generation of young people filling our colleges and jobs. Then consider those commentators who celebrate the creative brilliance of digitally adept youth. To them all, I want to ask: Whom are you talking about? There is no such thing as a "digital generation.""

"George Siemens offers this interesting quote from Chris Lott: 'Academics tend to err on the side of nuance and precision, eschewing generalizations and coarse labels. This is great for documenting cultural dynamics, but not so great for making interventions." Well, yeah - if interventions are what you want, then distortions and simplifications are what you're going to need. But perhaps in the light of this we should be questioning the ethics of making an intervention. Perhaps we should be asking what it means to do this, and to query whether we don't create more harm than good in the process."

"Digital Natives is an interdisciplinary collaboration of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen. Our aim is to understand and support young people as they grow up in a digital age. Within the project, we make use of a variety of methods to investigate a range of themes pertaining to young people and their use of technologies. Our outputs range from academic publications to hands-on legal, educational, and technological interventions."

"term Digital Natives was “relying too much on age as determining factor of Internet & technology savviness”...DNs are “not a generation but a population"..."As long as we divide the world into digital natives & immigrants, we won’t be able to talk meaningfully about the kinds of sharing that occurs between adults & children & we won’t be able to imagine other ways adults can interact with youth outside of these cultural divides."..."Technology does not have a moral component: it is the people who use it. Technology does not do the work: it is the people who use it. Today or yesterday or tomorrow, everything is mediated through technologies - it’s different technologies, but the same humans mediating."

"what matters in the age where, for example, South Korean popular television shows hours of Starcraft competitions, all moderated by a trio doing color, stats and play-by-play? Who are our cultural heros? What are our the aspirations of digital kids as defined by their peers? By their parents?"

"Studies show older people are generally more adept with computers than younger....Education and work can be restructured to teach and propagate the skills of concentration and focus. People can be taught to turn off, to ignore the beep and the ping."

“We’ve never before seen sub-groups working across organizational boundaries to advance the interests of the sub-group at the expense of the corporation...Few companies are prepared to deal with these issues in any comprehensive way.”

"fact that young people are more adept at using latest technologies has less to do w/ expertise, experience or access...more with their “non-dramatic” relation w/ these technologies, evidenced by way they deal w/ small failures & technological problem

"By using this forum I hope to start conversation around this issue & promote an informed discussion of strategies that postsecondary institutions can use to harness the power of Web 2.0 and other learning technologies that is based in fact not rhetoric."

"The series seeks to understand the practices and culture of the digital natives, the cultural implications of their phenomenon and the implications for education to schools, universities and libraries."

"tradition in education has been not to ask students what they think or want, but rather for adult educators to design the system and curriculum by themselves, using their "superior" knowledge and experience...this approach no longer works."

"Few have thought about the implications of information technology for individuals, organizations and society, leaving them poorly prepared to make political judgements. Finally, as Ivan Illich has pointed out, working with poorly understood technology ca

"Eszter Hargittai, an assistant professor in Northwestern University’s sociology department, has discovered that students aren’t nearly as Web-savvy as they, or their elders, assume."

"learning how to live in new mediated world by hanging out...how society & culture are constructed. As much as we like to shield our children from...problems in world, they know that they need to learn to interact with them...how to interact in public"

"the younger technical generations are so empowered they are impatient and ready to jettison institutions most of the rest of us tend to think of as essential, central, even immortal. They are ready to dump our schools"

"In this day and age, 25 years post the first IBM PC, pretty much everyone is able to adapt to, accept and become accomplished with consumer technologies. Your granddad is going to want to be your friend, text or IM you and get a GPS enabled phone.. Get u

"research...challenges conventional assumptions...about technological sophistication of teenagers...spend far less time online than adults...very limited number of activities...attitudes surprisingly unsophisticated"

"challenge NEA to track economic status of obsessive novel readers & obsessive computer programmers over next 10 yrs. Which group will have more professional success? more likely to found next Google/Facebook, go from college to $80K job?"

commentors weigh in on the 'Google Generation' myth

"Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy. One man’s odyssey through the nightmare of infinite connectivity"

"The report finds “little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority” when young people use the web, he notes...Confident, but not competent. There’s a lot of that going around. "

"In "Growing Up Online," FRONTLINE peers inside the world of this cyber-savvy generation through the eyes of teens and their parents, who often find themselves on opposite sides of a new digital divide."

"The findings also send a stark message to government - that young people are dangerously lacking information skills. Well-funded information literacy programmes are needed, it continues, if the UK is to remain as a leading knowledge economy with a strong

"Surely, we should recognize what digital immigrants bring with them from the old world which is still valuable in the new, rather than simply focus on their lacks and inadequacies"

"Businesses are banning social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook - but, to the alarm of students, universities are using them more and more"

"...our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we distinguish digital from real, virtual from real. In future, that will become literally impossible...distinction between cyberspace and that which isn't is going to be unimaginable."

"Recent sociological and governmental studies paint quite a different picture of this same generation. Often focusing specifically on the Internet, they report –similar to the sources above– that “children and young people [are generally] claiming g

"Aside from insulting an entire generation and coddling to the needs of younger learners, Prensky doesn't provide us with a compelling model forward (other than "use digital games"). Lately, I've noticed an increasingly strong resistance among educators t

"In a rather shallow piece lacking in evidence or data, Prensky offers the terms "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" to set up a generational divide. His proposition is simple-minded. He paints digital experience as wonderful and old ways as worthl

Zuardi and Agarwal represent the demise of the one-way globalization of American culture that reached its zenith in the 1970s and '80s...marketers simply fed the worldwide appetite for Levi's, Coke, ...Now it's a two-way street.

"The goal of SNS Project Inkwell® is to accelerate the deployment of appropriate technologies onto K-12 desktops worldwide."

"Unstructured time, friends and family who support technology-related interests, and most importantly, ongoing and sustained engagement with new technology from an early age are the conditions that produce tech-savvy youth."