Digital Natives and Immigrants Today

Post date: May 13, 2016 2:31:18 AM

By: Dennielyn S. Izon,

Administrative Aide VI

According to the blog of Mr. Jeff DeGraff, “Digital Natives” are the generation of people born during or after the rise of digital technologies while “Digital Immigrants” are the people born before the advent of digital technology.

Youngsters of today are the ones who are called the “Digital Natives” in the sense that they always have the personal computers, mobile tablets, internet, cell phones with messaging, cameras and many other modern gadgets just around them. Through early exposure to these kinds of stuff, they can easily learn and adapt the digital language and explore the world in an instant with the use of modern technology.

On the other hand, “Digital Immigrants” have the culture, practices and learnings that may not be all applicable for the things we have now and how we live today. Immigrants somehow need to make an adjustment in circumstances in order to cope up with the wonders of native’s high-tech world. The challenge of it for the most part is the complexity of the technologies, systems and its terminologies that digital natives use expertly like the Internet, mobile apps, cloud storage and etc. that comes to mind.

As one of the immigrants, I think it is really important to understand my own difference to the native ones. It doesn’t actually have to do with technology but the two worldviews that we represent are seemingly different from one another when it comes to living and learning. Learning, discovering and collaborating together can bridge the gap between digital natives and immigrants, to work hand-in-hand that will help us all grow and survive in the world’s technology today.

And with this, let me leave you this quote from Rupert Murdoch…

“We may never become true digital natives, but we can and must begin to assimilate to their culture and way of thinking.”