Digital Native, Digital Immigrant

I felt like Prensky was talking about me and students of my generation, along with the current generation of students. I see how it’s difficult for me to think sequentially and logically. I am also excellent at multi-tasking, and not only that, but I also recognize how instant gratification plays a major role in my life: I want things now, quickly, to the point, instantly. My sister who is a year younger is the same way. Her mind bounces from one thing to the next so quickly and frequently that when she’s listening to her iPod or the radio, she can’t listen to a song the whole way through. She’ll get bored and will need to change it to a new song that interests her.

Internet is also the reason why when we observe mainstream music today - especially all the emo, screamo, indie, pop punk whatever it is that young people listen to - bands don’t include awesome guitar solos and their songs are rarely over three to four minutes in length. My generation doesn’t have the patience to listen to longer songs because we’ve been programmed to have things immediately and quickly. Where is my generation’s Led Zeppelin? Rush? Pink Floyd? Eight minute songs? Forget about it. Give us something quick and simple before we get bored and move on to something more interesting. Lady Gaga is so popular because she’s so ADD - her music and her appearance is all over the place.



Students today flitter from one thing to the next so quickly. This is our reality and there’s nothing we can do to change it or revert back to the “good days” - at least this is what Prensky seems to say in his articles.

I consider myself to be a Digital Native in many respects. I have been surrounded by and utilized technology my entire life. However, this next generation of students I will be teaching, although also in a technological and digital world, are vastly different from me. For example, a lot of my adolescence was spent blogging and IM-ing. Students today have spent a good portion of their lives playing on cell phones sending thousands of text messages a month, obsessing over their appearance on social networking sites, and disconnecting themselves from the world through iPods. I recognized I am getting out of touch with the most current technology when I picked up my boyfriend’s 12 year old niece’s iPod touch and couldn’t even figure out how to turn it on! So in this respect, I am also a Digital Immigrant.



What I appreciate about Prensky’s perspective is that we need to catch up with our students. The fact is that their brains are different and so we have no choice but to adapt to the way they are now. Teaching methods certainly are out of date and need to be renovated to interest and suit students today.

There were some things I disagreed with, however. For example, he talks about how video games are the most useful ways to teach students today; he says that if a student plays an educational game for six hours on a Saturday, that adds another whole instruction day to the week. Why on earth would we encourage students to sit around for hours playing video games? I agree that it is a really innovative way and effective way to teach students today, but I’m concerned with the fact that students aren’t going out and being physically active. That’s one of the reasons I am hesitant when it comes to online instruction - what about the physical and social aspects that are necessary for human beings? I don’t want the world to become a place where we hide behind screens and use our digital technology to connect with each other. This seems to be the accelerating trend. I want my students to also be able to interact with human beings, real human beings, not just machines. Prensky is pushing us toward technology and stressing that it is the only way or else we’ll lose our students. I disagree. No matter what, real life and the experiences involved with living real life is superior to any sort of replication.