A few weeks ago I was asked to consider the so-called digital divide, as originally posited by Prensky in 2001, when he coined the terms digital natives and digital immigrants. I instantly took against his article, not least because it was an opinion piece with little or no evidence or proper research. I thought the idea was half-baked and I couldn’t believe it had caught on. I then read the piece by White and Le Cornu (2011) which introduced the terms digital visitors and digital residents. A much better article, with reasoned debate and evidence. Still…I had my doubts.
Thus I reflected. I thought a lot about myself. I am the perfect age for this debate. I grew up as personal technology grew up. In the 1970s I had a cartridge console with Pong. In the 1980s I had a Vic 20 (and my neighbour had a ZX Spectrum so we had the best of both worlds) and then a Commodore 64 – hours spent loading games from cassettes. I followed that with an Amiga, which helped me get a BSc. I had an early mini-disc player in the late 1990s and one of the first smartphones (an HTC) in the middle-late 2000s. I first used the internet in 1994 before browsers were common – it was a DOS-based system where you had to type in the telephone number of the server you wanted to reach, and put the phone on the modem. All you got for your patience was a colourful text screen. Now, years later, I love education technology, a huge fan of Twitter (but I’m not on Facebook) and I use an iPad daily. I feel very comfortable with all forms of tech. Yet to Prensky I’d be an immigrant. White and Le Cornu would put me as a resident. But I love being off-line too. I’m not tied to tech. Nothing I like more than sitting on the beach, walking in the woods or enjoying a lake-side beer. However, as a sample of one, my experience is irrelevant.
My fellow students all have a range of experiences and opinions. Some thought it was as black and white as Prensky. Others had a broader range of views. I learned quite a bit about people’s thoughts and experiences. I can’t say I agreed with many, if any. Further readings and experiences bring up other ideas of the digital divide. There is a social divide. The ONS (2014) showed that in the UK, by the Q1 2014, 6.4m adults had not used the internet. Not everyone has access; not everyone wants it. My Aunt for one. Even though she knows there’s savings to be made, she refuses to have a computer in her home. There is what the so-call post-code lottery. In the UK, some rural locales have very slow or no even no broadband, so proficiency with the internet is almost irrelevant. Of course there is a world-wide version of that too. You can’t assume that access to the internet or technology is ubiquitous. There is the digital literacy divide: someone might be awesome on Minecraft and are never off SnapChat, but ask them to find an article on a database and they won’t have the first clue. I’m sure you could make up a divide for any argument you cared to, in order to fit any agenda. Some say (eg Bennett and Maton, 2010 – probably the best piece I’ve read on the whole subject) that there is no evidence of the “existence of an entire generation of digital natives” when considering what all this means for education, which is a good start, but they are still thinking in binary terms.
As I said on our course forum, I don’t believe it his healthy or proper for educators (or anyone else) to think of people in such binary terms as natives or immigrants, or from another example when thinking of information, trust in physical journals but not the internet. What you can’t do is assume is that someone falls into an arbitrary category as suggested by the likes of Prensky. Binary thinking is dangerous. Assumptive labelling is dangerous.
There’s nothing wrong with considering a digital divide – in fact there are some issues which need to be addressed (such as disadvantaged social groups being charged higher prices because they use traditional or non-digital payment methods; or vital information only available to those with an internet connection, when people who might not want a computer and don’t have access to a public library also need it) – but it is unhelpful at best to make it a black and white issue. I don’t know anyone who exists in a yes/no, up/down, can/can’t world.
I live by the sea. I know a selection of both pre-teen and teenage children. Most have every gadget you can think of; phone, iPad, X-Box and the rest. Go down the beach on a warm Saturday evening and those same kids are jumping off the pier and throwing rocks into the sea. I’ve been reading a lot about theory of mind and various physiological and psychological traits people have. Did you know, for example, there’s a thing called Confabulation? It is essentially false memory syndrome. People make up their own history, without a conscious effort to deceive (eg. Fotopoulou, 2007). Of course there is synaesthesia, in which people experience senses differently, such as seeing sounds and hearing colours. People have left-brain right-brain preferences which vary greatly, but include “logical orientation, type of consciousness, fear level and sensitivity, social-professional orientation, and pair bonding-spousal dominance style” (Morton, 2012). My point is that people and emotions are extraordinary complex and are based on neurological and behavioural differences; nature and nurture. How can you possibly put someone in a binary category such as digital native? And that’s without identifying any social situation they may be in.
Very few people exist in a binary world. People are complex with multiple behavioural traits. As educators and information professionals, we shouldn’t perpetuate this binary myth but do our best to dispel it.
Bennett, S. and Maton, K. (2010) Beyond the ‘digital natives’ debate: Towards a more nuanced understanding of students’ technology experiences. Journal Of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 5, p321-331.
Fotopoulou, A., Conway, M. A. and Solms, M. (2007) Confabulation: Motivated reality monitoring. Neuropsychologia, 45(10), p2180-2190.
Morton, B. E. (2012) Left and right brain-oriented hemisity subjects show opposite behavioral preferences. Frontiers In Physiology, 3, p1-12.
ONS (2014) Internet access quarterly update Q1 2014 [online]. Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/rdit2/internet-access-quarterly-update/q1-2014/stb-ia-q1-2014.html [Accessed: 28 October 2014].
Prensky, M. (2001) Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the horizon, 9 (5), p1–6 [pdf]. Available at: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf [Accessed: 28 October 2014].
White, D. S. and Le Cornu, A. (2011) Visitors and residents: A new typology for online engagement [online]. Available at: http://firstmonday.org/article/view/3171/3049 [Accessed: 28 October 2014].
IanJSimpson and the Raiders of the Lost Information 