Digital Natives Vs. Digital Immigrants

Digital Natives Vs. Digital Immigrants

Children of this era are certainly at an advantage due to how connected they are with technology. They can stay in touch with their friends from anywhere in the world and can find information with the click of a few keystrokes. But how reliable is the information they find? And how safe and reliable are the “friends” they connect with online? It is the responsibility of digital immigrants to learn and teach digital natives how to protect themselves on the internet, as we would teach them when they’re walking down the street or talking to strangers in person. Just because there is a screen in front of them, doesn’t mean other people aren’t as dangerous online. There are many cases of predators who meet up with children online or even catfish them, pretending to be people their age. Children can have their identities stolen or their computers hacked. They can post things online that they’ll regret later in life after their brains have developed. And what is happening to those brains? There are much higher numbers of ADHD and I have seen my own students struggle to focus and divide their attention between their smartphones. It’s like walking around with a dopamine trigger in your hand all the time. The likes they get from social media and the points they win on their games make them addicted to the point where they can’t choose between work and their phones. This is understandable because of their children, but what is horrendous is how adults working for these media companies have taken advantage of their developing brains and used it for their own profit. We’re also seeing higher rates of teen depression, anxiety and even suicide. Many girls are developing eating disorders because theyre inundated with edited photos on Instagram. 

To be honest, while I think my students do have many advantages with the internet, I’m worried about them. It’s the responsibility of the adults to set up boundaries for them and teach them how to properly use the internet. I’ve found that while many of my students can quickly look up information, they have little idea of whether the information they’re gathering is accurate or not. They don’t know what news to trust or even whether something is news or not. They will quickly plagiarize because it’s easy for them to just copy and paste. In the world they live in, they want to finish things quickly and efficiently. But that kind of work isn’t always helpful in the real world. They need to learn how to be patient and focus on a task for a longer period of time than they’re used to on the internet.