> "So, when I got a computer in my early twenties..."
Did Will have exposure to computing before this time? If not, it kinda blows the whole digital natives thing away.
Did Will have exposure to computing before this time? If not, it kinda blows the whole digital natives thing away.
Besides the much-talked about problems with kids growing up in the age of iPads and Chromebooks, which prevent any actual interactions with computers, kids are even bad at the internet.
I remember this as far back as 2011, when Osama bin Laden was killed. One of the highest trending questions on both Twitter and on Yahoo Answers was "who was Osama bin Laden?" A shocking number of people's first instinct when trying to find out information was not Google searching, but lazy-web asking complete strangers on message boards, and needing to wait around to find out someone's answer.
Since then I've noticed this kind of thing with my students more and more. They can do actual research if told to, but it's never their first instinct.
Very interesting.
Your observation might be a generality.
I keep thinking of Marshall McLuhan, Neal Postman, and other media critics. How were they so prescient and clear-eyed about the sociology of broadcast and cable television? While the following generation was so oblivious once that those mediums were established?
Ditto the early critics of social media, like Clay Shirky.
The best folk theory that I've come up with is that a fish doesn't know anything about water.
However I believe that those who grew up with or experienced the 8 bit home computer and it's evolution to what we have now, they have a much better understanding of how computers work.
Those of us grew up in the 'before times' had to understand how computers worked just to make them, well work. Much like someone who had to dig their own well, run their own pipes and heat their own water probably has a much better understanding as to how and why hot water comes out of their shower.
Part of why I don't think people understand the digital world is because it's changing fast. Both the systems themselves on a lower levels like hardware, and on top in regards to UX. Typing into a Commodore 64 is vastly different than a mouse-driven traditional desktop, which again is very different than a material design smartphone app. It's a lot of work to know these systems, and so, I think people don't know them that well, and that they overestimate their, and others' familiarity with them, in a similar way to how the Dunning-Kruger effect works.
It's not really a good or bad thing, just a difference. I think you'd usually find most younger people are quicker at acquiring information than average old people due to their familiarity with the tools, though not necessarily any better at turning that information into anything actionable. Most young people are just as useless outside their comfort zone as old people are.
FWIW, the idea of digital natives is problematic for other reasons, primarily the fact that it’s being applied to today’s kids who mostly are not any sort of native experts in general computing. If any generation is worthy of the term, it’s the millennials/Xennials who were there in the era when the use of personal computers involved more than just endlessly scrolling TikTok.
Idk, maybe it's just a thing where I live.