in "digital limbo"

Today it’s not uncommon to find a 2 or 3 year old playing a game on their parents’ iPad or phone, whereas growing up, I rarely touched the television. Instead I was out in my neighborhood building forts, rollerblading, or playing a game of capture the flag – those activities my grandparents would refer to as “good old fashioned fun” in comparison to sitting behind a screen today. I’m bringing this point up because it’s not that I was born drastically before the boom of the technology age, but I did have a healthy balance that helped me understand a unique perspective on technology; it is helpful and fun, but it is not the be-all end-all. It is still useful to contact someone via a phone call rather than a text. That sometimes there is something more meaningful and exciting in letter writing and receiving physical mail than just another email in the inbox. And that communicating face to face can remain private, but in social media it is easily publicized.

In class this week, we learned about the concept of a “digital native” from Bill Sheskey. He defines a digital native as students who are “native speakers of technology, fluent in the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet.” These are people who have grown up immersed in technology and have an understanding of it that enables them to adequately navigate through many different technological systems. Sheskey compares this definition with the idea of a “digital immigrant” or someone who wasn’t born into the digital world but has adopted it. Sheskey comments like people who learn a language later in life, the accent of the past will continue to influence their enculturation into this digital world. He gives the example that these “immigrants” would read a manual in order to figure out a new program, whereas, a “native” would work with the program and let it teach itself.

I’m definitely not a “digital immigrant” as I am familiar enough with technology that with most programs I could play with it a bit in order to figure it out. I think most people would consider me a “digital native” based upon the fact that I’ve grown up with all sorts of new and innovative technologies being incorporated into my life: computers, cell phones, digital cameras, iPods, the Internet.  However, I’m proposing that I’m almost between the two, in a “digital limbo” of sorts. I’m just on the verge of someone who would be considered a “native” as technological advancements have been a large part of my life, and I wouldn’t be one to read a manual like an “immigrant,” but there is a part of me that would rather use “old” ways of doing things (notes by hand, calling instead of texting, etc.) I have been and am in classes that technology consumes, but I also remember first being introduced to using technology for my studies when I was required to take “essential skills” and “keyboarding” classes in middle school.

As I’ve adapted to the use of more and more technology over the years, I’ve never forgot the many things my parents and teachers, those so called “digital immigrants,” warned us about as we learned about it:

“remember, everything you put on the internet is public”

“anyone has access to the internet”

“once it’s there, it’s permanent”

“you can’t trust it”

Although this may have been their “accent” speaking, these are all valid and important things to remember when using technology. We recently talked in class about a student who had been using technology as a means to express himself and vocally display his abuse of alcohol on Twitter without the realization that this was public for all to see. As a Millennial caught in this “digital limbo” I have the understanding of a “native” but also part of the accent of the “immigrant.” My nativeness helps me to be able to figure out and efficiently use technology but the accent of the people who taught the digital ways helps me to stay in tune with norms to use technology appropriately. I think this is the balance that needs to be achieved in our “digital native’s” today. Although they have grown up with technology so easily available and an understanding of how to use it for almost everything, it is sad to know that a student would not understand the social aspects of public-ness that the internet can have.

In my preparation to become a teacher, I am taking a class that addresses these issues, where I can reflect on technology as a positive, but be weary of the negative aspects of it as well. I believe this is something we need to remember to teach our future students or “digital natives.” I agree that technology can have benefits to the classroom and the more I’m in this class, the more I’m warming up to it, but I also think it doesn’t hurt to help students recognize its downfalls—that technology is not the end-all. Rather,  achieving a balance between being a “digital native” and taking the cautions of the “digital immigrant” could better open our students’ eyes to understanding a world that is not completely digitally dominated. I think this is extremely important to remember as these “digital natives” move forward in their lives and their continued use of technology in order to prevent the negative implications that technology could have.