Digital natives v.s. Digital immigrants

1. What is "digital natives"?

According to Oxford online dictionaries, digital natives refer to people born or brought up during the age of digital technology and so familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age. Prensky (2001) stated that for digital natives, computer games, the Internet, cell phones, and instant messages are integrated parts in their lives. He also noted the following features:

• Used to received information really fast
• Like to parallel process and multi-task.
• Prefer graphics to text
• Prefer random access
• Prefer games to "serious" work 

2. Whats is "digital immigrants"?

Compared to digital natives, digital immigrants refer to people born or brought up before the widespread use of digital technology. They like to read information in hard copy form and read manual/instruction when acquiring new technology. Prensky (2001) indicated that digital immigrants still retain their strong accent, i.e., they just adopted to their digital environment rather than accustom themselves to the whole net world. They might, for instance, secretly print email and news to read, or bring people physically into office to see an interesting website. For digital immigrants, they have little appreciation for the new skills that digital natives acquired. They used to the learn those skills in a organized, step-by-step way, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously. 

3. What are the difference?

The notable difference between digital natives and digital immigrants is the perception and way of receiving information. It's natural for the formers to receive information on the Internet and use hyperlink to communicate and share with their online friends via social media and social networking. The later seemed to use technology in their daily life but they are sometimes afraid of stepping out for learning a new technology stuff or skill. Take "social networking site" for example, digital natives might spent a lot of time on social networking sites, integrated their studies, entertainment, business, reading, and daily event for the whole day. However, the digital immigrants may/may not join a social networking service, or might be an passive users on any platform. All in all, the difference between both groups are not specifically well-defined, but their attitudes toward technology varies according to the acceptance into the digital world.

4. Is it possible that digital immigrants became digital natives?

According to the above mentioned, there's no specific boundary between digital natives and immigrants, but the biggest difference lies in the perception of technology. In what Prensky (2001a, 2001b) stated is how teacher need to speed up with the new generation and provided "random access" to improve their learning. However, VanSlyle (2003) disagreed what Prensky defined and proposed his counterargument on digital natives's information literacy, which is not so sufficient as we think. He eventually proposed a workable solution to which arises the "conception of of the cultural assimilation between the two group as a metal process of adaption rather than one-way street." In my opinion, though digital natives and immigrants are different groups, but it doest mean that they is no possibility to transfer from digital immigrants to digital natives. Once individuals become familiar with the way digital natives employ in their life, they are able to become digital natives. But the notion should be more awareness and understanding of cultural difference to the new generation and bridge the gap between them. 

ReferenceBennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British journal of educational technology,39(5), 775-786.
Prensky, M. (2001a). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the horizon, 9(5), 1-6.
Prensky, M. (2009). H. sapiens digital: From digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom. Journal of Online Education, 5(3), 1-9.
VanSlyke, T. (2003). Digital natives, digital immigrants: Some thoughts from the generation gap. The technology source, 7(3).