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Comment by high_derivative | Hacker News Reader

I have long thought the term 'digital native' is a sort of filter for people who are not actually technologists but avid consumers of mostly social platforms.

I (as a computer scientist) have never heard people actually working in tech refer to themselves as that.

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It's a term and concept that came out of essentially sociology writing by a number of different people in the late 90s and early 2000s.

As the linked article suggests though, it's not clear it's a particularly useful term. The digital immigrants are often more tech savvy in at least many respects than the natives because they once had to be. And most of the people I work with in tech have had absolutely no problem fully incorporating the rideshare, social media, video/ music streaming, and mapping apps into their everyday lives even though many first encountered them as adults.

Are there age-based differences in media consumption etc.? Sure. But that's much more about generational preferences and habits than having grown up before the Web.

It is about ability to use as opposed to ability to design and repair. Those are separate skills and it is possible for a shocking degree of range. A "digital native" could set up a projector easily while being clueless to the underlying principles beyond "must be plugged in and this connected to this". The fact use is so common compared to design makes it stand out more - especially since it is easy for them.

Meanwhile an electrical engineering professor may be capable of designing and diagnosing it and know about all of the nasty design pitfalls like "if you try to make the cache too low impedience for low latency it can lose its DRAM state" or "wired this way will add noise to your analog signal" but have trouble operating the menu or unable to use a tablet with the ease of a toddler.

It is possible for both to learn the other side of course.

It's a useful term that I like to use when politicians propose something stupid or harmful that is related to digital technology. It's fitting because it sometimes seems that they want to push their visions of how the internet should work on others. A good example is the current copyright reform of the EU.

I always assumed it was coined by a manager somewhere who was impressed by his teenage intern's ability to set up his email. There are a lot of people who aren't just not technical but actively phobic of computers, I think 'digital native' is more like knowing how to drive than knowing how to fix a car.

AFAIK it was introduced by Don Tapscot in his 1999 book Growing up Digital.

Here's a little more background on the term. Tapscot seems to have had the basic concept in the book but didn't use the exact term. Douglas Rushkoff probably coined the precise term.

http://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Origins_of...

I've heard this term first time now reading your comment. Adding it to "list of thing I hope my kids are not".

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