05/25/26 - Chapter 2: Digital Who-Are-They?
Digital Natives? Digital Residents? Netizens? Generation Whatever's?
With the ever growing presence of the younger generations online, a lot of people often wonder where they lie in this spectrum. As someone from Gen Z (or Generation Z) I can't remember a time before the Internet. There wasn't a point in my childhood where I didn't remember having our family computer, or trying to log in to my favorite online game websites without trying to wake my parents up. This is the case for many students like myself from K-12 all the way to college and higher education. We have spent either the majority or entirety of our lives with technology as a given. Whether it's through memories of old music players or video cams, or the recent resurface of older technology (dubbed "Going Analog") as a way to escape the giant that is social media nowadays.
Thanks to these interactions, young people approach and process information differently than their predecessors. Researchers have come up with several names to define these new generations of students such as N-gen (Net-gen) or D-gen (Digital-gen). But what does this mean for people who remember a time before technology was so widespread? This is what they call digital immigrants, meaning people who have learnt to adapt to technology. (Although I can't say I'm a fan of how it is phrased, as I'm sure there are other ways to describe people that have incorporated technology at later stages in their life.)
I think as a learner, while I don't know how to use every single tool out there, I'm comfortable enough with technology to know where to look for help or resources. For example, if I'm having issues running a program or a tool I know I can look to older /Reddit posts or grainy Youtube videos, where someone 10 years ago faced the same problem I did. But I do think there might be an element of self-consciousness around older people when they approach technology. It seems so fast-paced, with no room to make mistakes or be as forgiving as other realms outside the digital world.
Overall, I do think a lot of things have to be considered by both educators and instructional designer. Besides the fact that everyone is not equally as skilled in technology, this generally affects how any content has to be designed in a way that is approachable but effective. This means adapting any content that'd be delivered in a traditional setting to suit the features that technology provides to learners.
Stay tuned next week for my next post!
Your favorite web-surfer,
Adri xx
References:
Digital natives, digital immigrants. (2001). In On The Horizon: Vol. Volume 9, Number 5.
Di
The phrase “digital immigrants” always makes me imagine someone arriving at Ellis Island carrying a USB cable and asking where the Wi-Fi password is 😂. But honestly, your post perfectly captures the weird reality of Gen Z life: we grew up treating technology less like a tool and more like oxygen. The part about solving problems through ancient Reddit threads and grainy YouTube tutorials was painfully accurate too. There is truly nothing more humbling than depending on a 240p video uploaded in 2011 by someone named “xXDragonMasterXx” to fix a very specific software issue.
ReplyDeleteI also liked your point about older generations sometimes feeling self-conscious around technology. The internet moves so fast that everyone feels technologically inadequate eventually — even Gen Z five minutes after a new app updates its interface. Your reflection highlights something important for education: digital confidence matters just as much as digital skill. Sometimes the biggest challenge is not learning the tool itself, but feeling comfortable enough to experiment, fail, and click random buttons without fear.