Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

Culture

from the perspective dept

Just as we were talking about how to better handle things like IM in the office, we come across Future Now pointing to an (unfortunately BugMeNot-required) article about the “wisdom” of “digital natives.” Basically, by understanding that the younger generation has grown up with technology all around them and understands both the technology and the behavior skills needed function can get by better than “digital immigrants” who will always feel a bit foreign. Amusingly, the article notes the difference between terminology: “Blog, Wiki, RTS, Spawn, POS, Astroturf” vs “cross-functional cooperation, team-based management, and 360-degree feedback.” Also, they view things in a different manner. Rather than being worried about “information overload,” digital natives learned to thrive on it, and, if anything seem to have more problems when its cut off — which may be misinterpreted as addiction. As the article notes, this doesn’t mean handing over businesses to a younger generation, but realizing the differences in the way older and younger generations look at these things, and realizing what that will mean for markets going forward.