Essay

Marc Prensky's "Emerging online life of the digital native" and Dave Weinberger's "A New World" both present different views of contemporary internet users. In light of your own experiences with new technologies do you think they are accurate portrayals? Discuss why or why not with specific examples.

Prenksy and Weinberger present fundamentally different approaches to the contemporary internet user. When examining these two views it is important to consider the motivations that provide the underlying basis of the arguments. Even though their arguments may be different, both authors make a living from commentating on the Internet. Part of this involves maintaining a media personality, presenting a point of view that popularises them or that marks their opinions as significant. Prensky’s work is designed to inspire a form of ‘moral panic’ (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008), particularly in parents and teachers. Weinberger aims to explore the deeper meaning of the Web, and hence intends to appeal to academics, students of philosophy and those who happily live their lives immersed in the Web. This essay will examine both points of view and make an assessment of their validity regarding the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). This paper forms the conclusion that despite there being a level of accuracy to Prensky’s statements, his arguments are designed to be controversial for the sake of popularity rather than being theoretically informed. On the other hand, Weinberger’s arguments are derived from an academic and philosophical point of view that considers other schools of thought, as opposed to making sweeping statements based on little other than the author’s opinion. Therefore, Weinberger’s theories represent a more accurate portrait of the contemporary internet user.

The digital native concept was first put forward by Marc Prensky in his 2001 seminal article, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”. In this article, he presents the idea of the digital native, a generation born roughly between 1980 and 1994 and onwards, which some refer to as the ‘Net Generation’ (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008). According to Prensky, these generations being the first generations to grow up immersed in digital technologies and the Internet, have been inexorably altered by the experience and as a result ‘digital natives’ think and process information fundamentally differently, are more proficient at multitasking and are highly dependent on communication technologies for social interaction and for accessing information (Prensky 2001a). Prensky goes even further to state that as a result of this digital childhood, it is very likely that their brains have altered (Prensky 2001, p.1). On the other hand, those whom are born prior to 1980 (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008) are referred to as ‘digital immigrants’ - a generation that has had to adapt to the rapidly changing world of information technology. In short, Prensky assumes immigrants, particularly educators, are mostly unable to adjust to new technology, and consequently lack the technological fluency and skills to keep up with, let alone engage, this new generation of digital wiz kids (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008).

In the "Emerging online life of the digital native" he continues his distinction between the young, tech-savvy ‘native’ possessing ‘sophisticated knowledge and skills’ and the floundering ‘immigrant’. He frames the ‘digital native’ as forging its own path by finding new and creative ways to incorporate digital technologies in their lives, particularly in regards to the online world. He further states that for these young people the ‘online’ world has become ‘an entire strategy for how to live, survive and thrive in the 21st century’ (Prensky 2004) and parents and teachers ignore this new generation at their own peril. Implicit in Prensky’s writing is the high degree of computer literacy he claims digital natives possess.

This high degree of computer literacy forms the basis of one of the major criticisms of the ‘digital native’ theory. If one reviews the research regarding these assumptions, it soon becomes evident that there are widely varying experiences of technology according to children’s school and home backgrounds, and ‘technology skills and experience are far from universal among young people’ (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008). Some academics go further to state that digital natives lack even basic competencies in computer use, or in the use of other networked technologies and there is actually evidence of a growing divide among the digital natives, in which the ‘technologically skilled lead the unskilled masses’ (Herold 2009, p.3). A survey of 4374 students across 13 academic institutions in the United States (Kvavik, Caruso & Morgan 2004) found that despite high levels of use in certain technologies such as word processing, email and surfing the web, ‘only a minority of the students (around 21%) were engaged in creating their own content and multimedia for the Web’ (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008, p.4). The general focus of these findings is further reinforced by two recent studies of Australian university students (Kennedy, Krause, Judd, Churchward & Gray 2006; Oliver & Goerke 2007) highlighting similar patterns in access to ICTs (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008, p.4). ‘These studies also found that emerging technologies were not commonly used, with only 21% of respondents maintaining a blog, 24% using social-networking technologies (Kennedy et al, 2006), and 21.5% downloading podcasts’ (Oliver & Goerke, 2007) (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008, p.4). Whilst in the rapidly changing world of technology these statistics are likely outdated, these findings call into question the very existence of the ‘digital natives’ that Prensky purports are claiming digital technology as their birthright (Prensky 2004, Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008, Herold 2009). Interestingly the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55 (Read Write Web 2009).

As mentioned in the introduction much of Prensky’s work is designed to elicit ‘moral panic’ in those outside the youth subculture. ‘Moral panic’ is elicited when a particular group ‘is portrayed by the news media as embodying a threat to societal values and norms’ (Bennett, Maton, Kervin 2008, p.8). A comparable example is the treatment of the Muslim population by the media in the ‘West’ after the September 11 bombings. This threat is amplified by the use of ‘sensationalist’ language designed to amplify the apparent risk. When one examines Prensky’s article it becomes obvious that the whole piece is structured to accentuate a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’, and to elicit feelings of anxiety in those outside the ‘digital native’ subculture. He mentions how digital natives are doing things ‘under the radar” of most Digital Immigrant adults’ (Prensky 2004, p.2) and that some of their behaviours will be impossible for ‘digital immigrants’ to adopt, given their pre-digital accents (Prensky 2004, p.14).

Marc Prensky also makes sweeping statements with no basis other than personal opinion. At one point, he states that the different ways ‘natives’ and ‘immigrants’ use technology often causes dissonance between the two groups, and if you didn’t know this you obviously haven’t ‘been with a lot of people from the other age group (Prensky 2004, p.2). Prensky seems to frame himself as an intermediary between the two starkly different groups outlined in this article.

David Weinberger presents a more holistic and philosophical view of the contemporary internet user, that isn’t concerned with seeking popularity through paranoia. Rather than Prensky’s view that the digital native is shaping the path of the future, particularly with regards to the World Wide Web, Weinberger suggests that it is the other way round. It is the Internet, or more precisely the World Wide Web, that is shaping us by challenging many of the bedrock concepts that provide our human experience; concepts such as space, time, perfection, social interaction, knowledge, matter and morality (Weinberger 2002). Because of this we are still feeling our way in terms of how to interact and socialize on the Web. He states ‘the lines are not just blurry but seem to have been re-drawn according to a new set of rules that don't yet make sense to us’ (Weinberger 2002). Throughout "A New World", which is the introductory chapter of Weinberger’s book Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A unified theory of the Web, he ponders on what kind of people Web inhabitants are becoming as a result of participating online (Conhaim 2002). Are human beings becoming more social or less social?

Weinberger’s work has a strong basis in Sherry Turkle’s earlier expositions into computers and what she terms the ‘second self’ (1984). One of the many concepts Turkle outlines, in her prescient books on the affects computers are having on human nature, is the concept of the ‘subjective computer’. ‘This is the machine as it enters into social life and psychological development, the computer as it affects the way that we think, especially the way we think about ourselves’ (Turkle 1984, p.19). Weinberger extends her concepts to encompass the Web and how it is impacting on our social life and psychological development when he states: ‘The very basics of what it means to have a self-identity through time—an "inner" consistency, a core character from which all else springs—are in question on the Web, we are entering a new world’ (Weinberger 2002); a world that due to its virtuality transcends the nature of the physical reality, allowing us to do whatever we want, to be whoever we want.

According to Weinberger, this process of reinvention is a big reason why we are so confused about how to traverse traditional issues such as how you present yourself, what is the correct context to say something, privacy. He underscores this with the story of Michael Campbell, a boy who ended up in jail after making threatening insinuations over the Web to repeat the Columbine shootings to a student that attended the school. According to Weinberger, whilst this is an unusual case ‘it is not at all unusual on the Web for someone to "try on" a personality and to switch personalities from chat room to chat room’ (Weinberger 2002). This is one of the revolutionary factors of the Web, a virtual world that is increasingly putting pressure on the real world with a growing number of people facing real world consequences for virtual world actions. This cross over has also impacted on legal issues such as privacy and ownership of content.

Facebook the largest growing social networking site on the web is one such service that has attracted a lot of publicity regarding privacy. This often involved employers or employment agencies checking staff or potential staff’s Facebook pages and occasionally even sexual predators chasing potential victims via their pages. This has prompted Facebook to release a set of updated privacy controls to try and balance the tightrope between privacy in a world that is open for all to see (Read Write Web 2009). If ones logs onto Google Earth and clicks help, there is a subheading ‘Legal and Privacy Issues’ which states: ‘Google Earth contains only information that is readily available from both commercial and public sources. For example, this same information is available to anyone who flies over or drives by a piece of property’ (Google Earth). On the 12th December 2009, a UK trainee handed in her resignation after she had sent an inappropriate email at work which went viral (worldwide) in under 24 hours. She was quoted as saying, ‘It's a complete shock that one email could spread like this and who would think it would get so out of hand’ (Nine MSN Dec. 2009).

There is ample evidence, as Weinberger states, we are confused about the virtual world of the Web. Whilst young people are generally embracing technology faster than their parents, it is not unusual for the younger generations to embrace new concepts faster than the previous generations (look at Elvis Presley or Rap music). Unlike Prensky, who assumes mastery of new technologies by the ‘net generation’, Weinberger presents a more accurate portrayal of the contemporary internet user as an individual, along with 300-400 million other users, trying to work it out.


Reference:

Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984.

Weinberger, David. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web. "Chapter One - A New World", Perseus Publishing, 2002. http://common.books24x7.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/book/id_24898/book.asp
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Heckman, Lucy. “Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder”. Library Journal 15/02/2007, Vol. 132 Issue 3, p128-130 LIBRARY JOURNAL FEBRUARY 15, 2007 p128. Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre (EBSCOhost).
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Bennett, Sue; Maton, Karl and Kervin, Lisa 2007. “The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence”. British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 39 No 5 2008 775–786, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, UK

Conhaim, W. (2002). The Cyber-World We've Created. Information Today, 19(9), 58. Retrieved from Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre database.
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Prensky, Marc 2001. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”, On the Horizon. NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001.

Prensky, Marc 2004. “The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native: What they do differently because of technology, and how they do it.” www.marcprensky.com/.../Prensky-The_Emerging_Online_Life_of_the_Digital_Native-03.pdf.
(accessed December 09, 2009).

Herold, David 2007. “Digital Natives – Discourses of exclusion in an inclusive society”. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Applied Social Sciences (APSS), HK.
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