Sooo late

“Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” by Marc Prensky

In his article March Prensky talks about how teenagers are Digital Naives. The idea is simple enough seeing as how if you grow up around something, like computers, it just seems natural to you. I have to wonder whether Prensky thinks that Digital Natives are in fact a positive thing. couldn’t he just be saying something to the effect of “those youngsters spend too much time on their dang computers and that’s why they know how to work everything.” Isn’t Prensky basically saying that if it is not on the computer screen, teenagers and young adults simply don’t know how to do it? that’s why I get out of it.
And what about class? The way Prensky describes it, you would think that every teenager in America has a computer to sit at all day. My family didn’t have computer in the home until I was in Jr. High, and I know people today that still don’t have computers at home. In Prensky’s world these people would be immigrants. It might just be me but the term immigrant seems a little harsh. Sure if your sitting down at a computer for the first time it can be difficult, but to relate it to coming to a new country were customs and even language is completely different? It just doesn’t seem right. I know older people that I work with that never used a computer in their lives before they started to work for the company. But hell, after sitting down and playing around with it for a few days, they just sort of got the hang of it. I have a feeling that it would take more then a few days to get the hang of things after moving to another country.