It's Complicated: Digital Natives

The general thesis of this book is “How the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future,” which happens to be the subtitle of this book. In the first chapter, Knowledge Deficits, the author talks about how the teens in the 20th century have the same or even lower education level as teens 30 years ago. Bauerlein goes on and talks about how the government is spending more for education compared to 30 years ago. In the second chapter, The New Bibliophobes, the author argues that teens are reading less books and their literary skills are not improving as fast because they are more interested in digital and pop culture. In the third chapter, Screen Time, lots of studies and surveys prove that teens are spending more time playing video games and socializing with each other online than studying. In chapter four, Online Learning And Non-Learning, the author talks about how teens are abusing the technology and pretending to use it for educational purposes, but in reality, the are using it for entertainment. In chapter five, The Betrayal Of The Mentors, the author explains if all teen follow this pathway they will utterly destroy their future by not making suitable for having a degree, job and poetically family.

The purpose of this news article was to bring light to a topic that adults and non-millennials probably would not comprehend and or understand otherwise about the current generation and what they gravitate towards. Examples of this could be an elderly parent or grandparent wondering why their child/grandchild loves social media so much or a young person being curious of which app they use the most. The article is mostly focused around college and high school students. The research study further goes on to explain why this trend is happening through questions, graphs, and exact numbers. It goes on

Digital Literacy has many definitions, by many people, even you may think of it differently than someone you know. Digital Literacy is how well someone uses technology, like being able to use different software and apps without trouble. In the article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” written by Psychologist Jean W. Twenge, she tells us how technology is affecting the current generation. Twenge gives us the statistics about the pros and cons that the technology has caused on the Post-Millennials. In Twenge’s article, she uses rhetorical appeals (Ethos, Pathos, and Logos) to develop her thesis, that is “More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been.

Turkle discusses the online personalities adolescents form to gain more confidence in who they are. These personalities’ form a constant need to stay connected and these teens have developed the willingness to put themselves in danger to do so. The new generation of adolescents feel a pull to be at a beckons call to every notification delivered to their cellular device. She argues these teens have been raised in a different manner compared to those of whom were teenagers twenty years ago. All of these factors lead into a war between technology and society of which hinders our young people’s development. Adolescents are bound to the constant desire to have a connection to technology and the luxuries the technology

Distinctions between “digital immigrants” and “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001a; Prensky, 2001b) have been frequently referenced over the past decade. Much has been written about digital native students as a part of the Net generation (Tapscott, 1998; Tapscott, 2008) or as Millennials (Howe & Strauss, 2000), which generally includes learners “born in the 1980s and later” (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005, p. 1.2). However, little work fully considers the impact of digital immigrant discourse as it appears within the field of adult learning and continuing education. Indeed, such discussion seems increasingly necessary given the growing body of recent evidence calling into question such popular, binary notions characterizing youth as ubiquitously tech

Samuel’s article, Forget ‘digital natives.’ Here’s how kids today are really using the internet was published on May 4, 2017 and is a relevant and recent topic that is valid when being considered reliable. Her article discusses the term “digital native” and how she classifies them into three different types. “Just as Prensky’s “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” seem overly simplistic today, my types — orphans, exiles, heirs — will no doubt fracture further”(Samuel). She classifies the

The film “ Digital Nation” is an exploration of diverse people's views on digital media, in today's world. Some of the most important topics were on the virtual world, and the pros and cons of technology within different groups like gamers, students, families, teachers, administrators, children, military and businesses, as well as the experience of general people. In the movie, Prof. Sherry Turkle said, “Technology challenges us to assert our human values. Technology is not good or bad, is powerful, and it is complicated which means first we have to figure out what they are”. Currently, technology has taken over, wherever one, goes one will find it. Over the past years, social media in particular have spread worldwide; from Facebook to Instagram. There is constantly something new, extra advanced and creative. Overall, the technology has evolved the way humans interact with each other. In particular, technology influences by motivating students towards learning, saving time, building literacy and communication skills.

The premise of the book goes into further detail concerning the digital era that we are living in today. Sadly the author explains that the digital culture does not open the minds of young adults to the

In reading Siva Vaidyanathan's text on falsifies of a "digital generation" it illuminates to me on a complex but simplistic breakdown the cultural perception of being digitally literate. Vaidyanathan's begins his article with the provocative sentences that "there is no such thing as a digital generation" to open up the dialogue to who truly is and isn't adept to the Internet and its resources (par 1). The assumptions Vaidyanathan alludes to in his text help define a clear vision that I not only agree with but relate to as he states: "college students in America are not as digital as we might with to pretend" and "...all this mystic talk about a generational shift and all the claims that kids won't read books are just not true" (par 6). Being a college student I relate to this on so many levels, as I primarily use quick online sources but still use hard cover textbooks as a primarily source for all of my

Although today's young adults and teens are familiar or what some might say “geniuses” with the internet, social media, video games. Is it safe to say that they are Digital Natives ?

When people hear the label ‘digital natives’ or ‘millennials’ a typical shared though by many is that they, the young people that these labels are referring to, are good with technology—usually this assumed technological gift is equated to something ridiculous such as they are born with a cell phone in their hands and that they will be a computer genius before they can walk. Though these outrageous assumptions are often made in jest, there does seem to be a bit of underlying belief to them; this belief can restrict the amount of technological skill still developing children who are, in fact, not born with advanced knowledge of technology are able to gain. Because of this, through an observation conducted at a Sphero Robot programming event

The article, “Digital Literacy Is the Key to the Future, But We Still Don’t Know What It Means,” is written by Marcus Wohlsen. He writes his article, to explain to the public what digital literacy is. Wohlsen knows that the increasing there is an increasing usage of technology in the public life, and to adapt to this they are going to need to be literate is using it. In his article, he explains to the public what this literacy is, and how much one needs to be literate in technology. Wohlsen effectively uses multiple viewpoints of experts and relatability to engage the reader and explain to them what digital literacy is all about.

In the chapter literacy, are today’s youth digital natives? on pages 176-186 Boyd discusses how the term “Digital Natives” is an over exaggeration phrase to describe today’s youth. She argues that even though today's teens are engaged in both the internet and other social media networks they don’t inherently comprehend most of their online encounters. She also claims that even teens are so deeply involved with the internet it’s “. . . dangerous to assume that youth are automatically informed. It is also naive to assume that so-called digital immigrants have nothing to offer.” Most of the teens today are solely consumers of technology, knowing what to do but not how to explain what they’re doing, giving them an upper hand over so called “digital immigrants”. Boyd provides examples of two types

In today’s world it is a requirement to be digitally literate in order to be able to function in a capacity that enables one to be more successful whether it is at home, school, at our jobs or even looking for a job. Over the last few decades our environment has evolved into a digital environment. Being or becoming digitally literate is essential in being successful in this digital environment. Almost everything we do today requires some sort of digital knowledge or literacy. From surfing the internet to searching for a job to being able to perform our jobs, we are required to have some sort of digital

Some authors believe that technology and social media play a positive impact in education. For example Marc Prensky, an American writer and speaker on learning and education in his article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” Prensky talks about the differences in learning abilities in today’s students that he refers to as digital natives as compared to the older generation that he terms as digital immigrants. Digital natives have brains that can receive and process information faster than older generations. In addition, they can retain information that is more detailed. Judging by this reason, technology is advantageous to mental development (Prensky). I disagree with Prensky because, despite the fact that technology has many advantages to