Prensky & Boyd: Digital Natives

    After engaging with the Marc Prensky “Digital Natives” recording and “Literacy: Are today’s youth digital natives?” from It’s Complicated by Danah Boyd, I have a mixed view on the concept of the “digital native.” I think that as much as Prensky and Boyd are in opposition, they are highlighting points that can work together to look at the nuances of the digital native group. 

    Prensky fits with our course anchor topic of youth as “digital natives.” Prensky takes the position that young people are digital natives, where they operate with technology in a completely different way than older people, who he calls “digital immigrants,” do. According to Prensky, digital natives are young people who can operate on the internet at twitch speed with parallel processing, easily making use of random access, graphics, and the connected aspect of the social networking world. On the other side, digital immigrants, who did not grow up submerged in technology in the same way, still operate on technology with conventional speed  and process in a linear fashion, work through the world step by step, read text first before engaging with images, and make use of stand-alone features of the networking world first.

    Prensky also discusses how young kids' brains are changing from the way they use technology. Students are not just using technology differently today, but are approaching their life and their daily activities differently because of technology. Prensky is interested in the dynamics that happen when digital native kids show up in digital immigrant classrooms. He notes that students have to “power down” in class rather than powering up and utilizing the skills they have. So, Prensky seems to be arguing that the digital immigrants must shape classroom spaces to best accommodate the digital natives and give them the space to use their skills to optimize learning. 

    In Chapter 7 of It’s Complicated, Boyd challenges the idea of young people being “digital natives” and older people being “digital immigrants,” questioning whether teens truly automatically understand technology. Boyd argues that, although teens are submerged in the technological world and deeply engaged on social media and the internet, they do not inherently have the knowledge and skills to “make the most of their online experiences” (176). She goes further to note that Prensky’s language of “digital natives” is far from useful--it is often a distraction that takes away from our ability to understand the challenges that young students face in the technological world. 

    When it comes to my own stance, I was interested in the data from the recording on Prensky on race, class, and gender differences, and I think it helped me find a middle ground between Boyd and Prensky. It was interesting to delve into the ways data reflects discrepancies in how young people are using technology based on things like socioeconomic status, race, class, gender, and other factors. From the recording we noted that, looking at race, class, and gender differences, the digital natives group has major nuances. For example, having smartphones is “ubiquitous” among digital natives, but having a home computer is not. Lower-income teens have different usage of social media platforms than higher income teens. To me, context behind who students are gives fundamental insight into how they are engaging with technology. Here is a link to an article about Digital Natives and Social Inequality that discusses this topic further.

    Similarly, in the Prensky recording, the question “are young people consumers of information or producers of information?” was posed. I think this question is where Boyd and Prensky can align in their discussion of digital natives. Prensky argues that digital natives, regardless of whether they are consumers or producers of information, have a better way in which they engage with information online that is more adept, more nuanced, and more creative than digital immigrants. Boyd, however, believes that teens are deeply and creatively connected, but not adept at critically examining what they consume, and applying that critical examination to what they produce. I believe that sociological factors like race, class, gender, socioeconomic status, and opportunity can shape how students are using technology or understanding technology. As Boyd noted, there are large gaps in how some students understand and engage with technology. I believe that being “born” in the time of this technology alone will not equip young students with the skills to become critical contributors to the technological world, aligning with Boyd’s view. I do agree with Prensky that teens are, by exposure alone, more skillful in navigating the setup of the digital world; however, I believe that young students need to be taught the skills to engage in technology in a way that is meaningful.