David McCoy

Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants: A common dividing point. One of my friend’s kids just joined the Facebook crowd. Her first post was, “I got a Facebook.”  Interesting choice of verb, “GOT.”  I use that verb when I pick up milk and bread. She used it when she picked up an account. Even more interesting was her choice of the indefinite article “a.”  I got a…. just like, I got a dog, I got a car, I got a B in history. “GOT A” – implies incredible comfort and familiarity with a piece of software (does she know it is software – probably not…) that is younger than she is. “GOT A” – the language one uses to acquire a common-place thing. An “anything”… Wow!

She is a digital native. Digital immigrants use different language: “I have established a login with that Facebook.com web site everyone is talking about.” Or, “I have set up an on-line account with the Facebook application that all the kids are using to stay in touch.”  Sounds like they are going to the bank, opening a new savings account. Digital immigrants. They are on the outside, looking in at the latest circus freak.

Digital immigrants have too much context. They remember life before “the hot new thing.” They do not show comfort and familiarity with the new toys. They use comfortable metaphors from their world: bulletin boards, desktops, trash cans, accounts, passwords (”Welcome to the secret club, Bob!”), folders, documents, etc. They attempt to manifest the real in the virtual. They have TOO much context. They can always remember “the before.” They remember too much of the “old country.” They are immigrants. It’s what they do best.

Digital natives are not that much smarter than all the rest of us. In fact, they have less knowledge. They have less context. They don’t know anything about “the old country.” To them, there is only one way to do things: the new way. “Get a Facebook.” It’s that simple. Keep that perspective in context. And you Digital Natives: Your “day of context” is coming. One day, your kids will laugh at your archaic ways from 2009. “Dad used to type and ‘text’ all the time. Can you believe that?” That is so lame… they didn’t even have LifeStreamingME back then! LOL!

Oh…on that “LOL” part… I doubt that will be used much in 2025, but I’m just a poor immigrant. I don’t know any better yet.