The digital native myth

By: Graham Lavender

The cliché is a fifty-year-old asking some ten year old student for help in making the computer work. Having trouble making working with your device or your software? Just grab one of those digital natives to handle it for you!

Well, not so fast. Here’s Jenny Abamu at Edsurge saying what I’ve been arguing for over a decade— our digital natives are hugely naïve about technology.

Source: CURMUDGUCATION: Digital Native Naivete

What makes this worse is that students believe they are experts because adults have been telling them that they are.  I’ve had the conversation with several students about why they shouldn’t be force-quitting the apps on their iPhones, and the looks I get range from, “Cool, I didn’t know that” to “I don’t believe you, I’m going to still force-quit apps”.