Digital Immigrants

    

    According to Marc Prensky, people using the internet are divided into two groups.  The ones who were born in the digital age and are more familiar with cyberspace and its inner workings.  They are known as Digital Natives.  Then you have the other group born in an age before computers took over and have to actively adapt as time marches on.  Those people are referred to as Digital Immigrants.

    Digital Natives are the young folks.  Those usually born in the middle of Generation Z are exposed to computers at a young age.  Because of this constant exposure and because children tend to pick up on things faster, these are the individuals who will are more likely to be tech savvy as they grow.  

    Digital Immigrants meanwhile were not exposed to computers in contrast to the younger generations; therefore, it is more difficult for the digital immigrants to adapt in comparison to the digital natives of today.  The unfortunate reality has somewhat created a rift of sorts.  Older generations aren't used to internet slang and all these high tech features their younger peers are simply more used to, and sometimes it is not as easy for younger folks to be as patient, which why would they especially when a large majority of them are more likely to still be children?  

    One thing I'd like to point out however is at the end of the day, one could argue that we all become Digital Immigrants at some point.  I was asked if whether I consider myself either a digital immigrant or native, and I'd like to think I started off as the former, but slowly became the latter.  And that's simply because I had to adapt with what I had technologically available during my time.  I was born in 1997, right around the era when tech was still taking off.  I experienced disks, floppies, and dial-ups, and modern gaming consoles was the Playstation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo Gamecube.  But right around the end of my time in high school was right around the time they started integrating the Internet more in school.  Needless to say, things have changed quite a lot in what feels like a short span of time.