DIGITAL NATIVES

Nowadays, technology has become in an important and essential tool for everything, nowadays, we cannot live without technology, and it could be a computer, a smartphone, a tablet, a smart television, or even a simple appliance. But, with technology there is a problem, and it is in a question form, how to use it? There is a continuous uploading of software and new devices that come out to the market and some of them are confusing to use, and a high percent of the buyers of this new technology are young people; but why is this happening? What do they use technology for? Most of these young people are studying, then, why do they get it?

The answer to the questions above is simple, and the answer is the same, people who get technology and know or learn how to use it properly is because they are Digital Natives, but what is that? According to Prensky a Digital Native is someone multi-tasks, has access to a range of new technologies, is confident in their use of technologies, and uses the Internet as first port of call information and uses the Internet for learning as well as other activities. Digital Natives are people who born after 1980 (according to Prensky) and they are the first generation, and the ones who born after 1990 are the second generation of Digital Natives. They have three characteristics: age, experience and breadth of use.

Lets define the three characteristics above: Age: the youngest generation who has grown up with technology and does not know any other context. Experience: those who has been in the Internet the longest, while they might not have grown up with the Internet when young, they have been submerged for the longest period of time; or Breadth of use: those for whose the Internet is integrated into almost every aspect of their everyday lives independent of their age or experience. As we can see, Digital Natives are young people, according to Prenskys definition and also according to their characteristics. But there are a lot of people around 40 years old who manages technology; yes, it is true, but how did they learn? They had to take a course of the software they manage now, and guess who taught them, Digital Natives (young people).

Some people say that technology is like another language, and it is true in a way, because there are a lot of technical terms and forms to use it, and there are a lot of people who do not know how to use it and it is hard for them to learn (no digital natives), but they do their best. Digital Natives are good surfing in the Internet, because most of the time they use it for entertainment and academic proposes, and rarely for looking for a job or elearning proposes. But it depends of their age and interests. Children born nowadays will manage technology even more than the ones born in 2,000, because technology is always

innovating and updating devices, and digital natives will have a bigger variety of technology than us, but we have to be careful and control it or we will be computerized.

By: Milton Orlando Martnez