How Do People Become Digital Natives Media Essay

How Do People Be hang Digital Natives Media testHelsper and Eynon argue that breadth of use, fetch, self-efficacy and education be just as, if non more, main(prenominal) than mount in explaining how people become digital natives (Helsper Eynon, 2010). But first, we welcome a bun in the oven to understand who spate be classified as a digital native.The term was coined by Mark Prensky in his cream, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, promulgated in 2001. Prensky described the generation of young people innate(p) since 1980 as digital natives due to what he perceived as an innate presumption in using new technologies such as the network, videogames, mobile telephone and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. (Selwyn, 2009)Adigital nativeis soul who was born around afterwards 1980 and has grown up surrounded by devices such as cell phones and computers. Through interacting with these devices from an early age, they have a greater understanding of technology tha n a digital immigrant. A digital immigrant, on the other hand, is a soul born before the debut of digital technology and have delayt to adapt their lives around technology.A digital native is unique because they have grown up with digital technologies. The delineation to these technologies from early in their lives has made these students native intercommunicateers of the digital language. A distinguishing peculiarity that Marc Prensky points out is, todays students think and process nurture keyly other than from their predecessors. (Prensky, 2001)A few key characteristics of digital natives argon al guidances online. By age 20, Dr. Urs Gasser from Harvards Berman centre points out that, kids will have spend 20,000 hours online -the same tally of clock time a professional piano player would have spent practicing. They tend to be very open about themselves online. It is said that 35% girls and 25% of boys write blogs. This usually works to be an advantage to HR sectors of various companies as they crapper Google a candidate with ease. They often association work with community builders, and are responsive to intrinsic motivations.However, a congregation of academics led by Sue Bennett of the University of Wollongong set out to debunk the consentient idea of digital natives in 2008. They say that the idea that digital natives learn in a different manner can actually have diverse consequences in the field of education. (Monitor The Next Generation Unplugged, 2010)Being born in the digital age has had m each significant impacts on fundamental features of human experience. They are wired differently. This affects the way they think and the way they learn. distant digital immigrants, digital natives dont have to print out email or other materials for later reading. They usually can read of the screen of the computer. If they compulsion to show someone a website, for example, they just have to send the crosstie to the soul in question. Digital na tives are concerned about doing things faster. For example, if a digital immigrant were to ask for the address of a five people in a set of people, they would take at least 15 proceeding per person writing all the reading. A digital native would nonwithstanding search for the facebook profile of the person which would take 15 minutes in total.Brains have different developmental experiences and therefore develop differently. Also, people who experience different inputs from the culture that surrounds them, think differently. (Prensky, 2001) Children raised with the computer think differently from the rest of us. They develop hypertext minds. They leap around. Its as though their cognitive structures were parallel, not sequential. (Winn)Digital natives crave instant responses for their actions as a result of their experiences. handed-down schooling does not cater for such characteristics. One study showed that students in class get to ask a question every 10 hours. (Prensky, 2001) Thedigital divideis the gap amongst people with access to information technology and those with very limited or no access at all. It includes the imbalance twain in physical access totechnologyand the resources and skills required to effectively participate as a digital citizen. Simply put, the digital divide is the empty space between the two armies, the space they come to do battle. One side of the arena are the digital natives and on the other side, the digital immigrants. There is a huge gap between the two as I pointed out earlier on in the essay.Both generations (digital natives and digital immigrants) are forced to meet which commonly results in conflicting ideologies of digital technology. The everyday regime of life at work is becoming more technologically advanced with improved computers in offices, more complicated machinery in industry etc. With technology rapidly improving, it is acquire harder and harder for digital immigrants to keep up.But this is not something n ew. Neuroscientists everywhere tells us that the thought adapts itself to the technology we use. It is not just technology that alters our behaviour and habits. It actually changes the way our mind works, and alters the physical structure of our brain. Connections between neurons are created, strengthened, or emaciated and severed based on interactions with the world. (davidweedmark). For e.g. take away technology from a teenager for a day and you will see the difference for yourself.From both extremes there is a healthy middle ground. The availability of calculators should not cockeyed that multiplication tables should not be memorized, but it does not imply that calculators should be banned. As Prensky pointed out, there is no reason that a generation that can memorize over 100 Pokemon characters cant learn the names, creations, capitals and relationships of all the one hundred one nations in the world. (Prensky, 2001)Helsper and Eynon argue that breadth of use, experience, self-efficacy and education are just as, if not more, important than age in explaining how people become digital natives (Helsper Eynon, 2010). Personally, I agree with the statement. There are four factors that determine whether a person is digital native Breadth of use, self-efficacy, education and age.Breadth of use, as mentioned by Helsper and Eynon refers to the number of times a person uses the cyberspace or any electronic source qualifies them to be that considered as a digital native.As indicated by the graph below, there is an increasing trend in internet usage.singapore internet.JPGThe impulse of a digital native to search for information would be going onto the internet, rather than newspapers or books. Unlike the digital immigrants, as defined by (Prensky, 2001) they are people who have lesser knowledge about the internet and the usage of it.Experience, to determine whether a person is a digital native or not, is defined as those who have been on the Internet the lon gest, while they might not have grown up with the Internet when young, they have been submerged in it for the longest period of time (Helsper Eynon, 2010). It is right to say that those working in the Information Technology (IT) sector will be better off than those who are novices to computer software. The age of experience of these experts determines how good they are in IT. A young person who is below the age of 30 is considered digital native as they will be able to figure out the program easily. This is due to the fact that when digital natives come out into the world, most of the technologies have already been so advanced, some of which are computerised, therefore it is not surprising to know that these natives are already submerged in the digital world.Self-efficacy refers to a persons belief that they can perform adequately in a situation. (Wood, Zeffane, Fromholtz, Wiesner, Creed, 2010). Gender is a manifest is an example for self-efficacy. Many tend to have a perception that boys are better in Mathematics and Physics than girls. Due to this, the self-efficacy produced from boys will be higher hence their thought processes are better. Likewise for self-efficacy in digital natives, as many perceive that young people, who are born after 1980, to be better at IT skills and knowledge. This led to the increase in their (digital natives) self-efficacy, which also resulted in them being better than the older people digitally.Education manifestly means the depth with which people are knowledgeable in skillful skills and knowledge, and whether education can determine whether someone is a digital native. agree to (Prensky, 2001), the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.Based on the arguments provided in this essay, it can be concluded that Helsper and Eynons argument t hat breadth of use, experience, self-efficacy and education are just as, if not more, important than age in explaining how people become digital natives (Helsper Eynon, 2010) holds water. totally the factors mentioned are all equally important in defining digital natives. Breadth of use shows us the number of people who use internet on a daily basis. Experience is dependent on the date one has worked with technology. A digital native is also determined by the self-efficaciousness they exhibit is towards modern technology such as computers and electronic devices. A strong educational background does not prove the existence of digital natives as many digital natives in this world are not well-educated. These factors are as important as age.