Digital Natives

After the book from John Pal­frey and Urs Gasser [1]

Dig­i­tal Natives, chil­dren who were born into and raised in the dig­i­tal world and a metaphor to invite peo­ple on a jour­ney and engage in a debate about the promis­es and lim­i­ta­tions, oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges, poten­tial ben­e­fits and pos­si­ble down­sides of the evolv­ing glob­al net­work that we call cyber­space. This con­ver­sa­tion among par­ents, teach­ers, coach­es, and cit­i­zens — among peo­ple who care about the future — should con­tin­ue, across gen­er­a­tions and boundaries.

What’s so good being born digital?

„The cen­tral con­cept accord­ing to John Pal­frey „is the extent to which young peo­ple have a much greater abil­i­ty to shape the cul­ture in which they are grow­ing up. Pow­er dynam­ics are shift­ing in many, though not all, con­texts to favour the indi­vid­ual and the nim­ble, small, ad hoc group against the large, slow-mov­ing institution.

In what areas in particular can Digital Natives make a real difference?

All Dig­i­tal Natives, the author John Pal­frey met in many places around the world, shared the com­mit­ment to mak­ing the world a bet­ter place. „The spir­it of inno­va­tion, entre­pre­neur­ship and car­ing for soci­ety at large that we„ve seen in cer­tain young peo­ple in our own back­yards — in West­ern Europe and the Unit­ed States — is alive and well in cul­tures that span the globe.”

John is also con­vinced that there is enor­mous tal­ent in this gen­er­a­tion enter­ing the work­force; they will be inno­v­a­tive, pro­duc­tive employ­ees if man­aged well: „Lis­ten to these Dig­i­tal Natives. Invite them into your com­pa­ny, either vir­tu­al­ly or in the flesh. Hire some of them. They are the future, like it or not, and they have some great ideas.”

They can show the world what they can do togeth­er, using tech­nolo­gies in cre­ative ways to make new things pos­si­ble and to solve prob­lems through col­lec­tive action. Dig­i­tal Natives have an enor­mous role to play in the online cre­ativ­i­ty and pira­cy debates. If they are reg­u­lar­ly in the role of cre­ators, they will come to respect the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights of oth­ers over time — as they will have devel­oped rights of their own — and to under­stand the pow­er of shar­ing cer­tain rights with oth­ers for the greater good. And they„ll lead the way to sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­els that reward cre­ators for their efforts while pre­serv­ing the inter­ests of the pub­lic at large.

Lawmaking due to challenges in cyberspace

John wor­ries that the promise of what„s pos­si­ble will be over­shad­owed by a few tru­ly hor­ri­ble acts that hap­pen to be medi­at­ed through dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies. He wor­ries also about the gap in access, lit­er­a­cy, and par­tic­i­pa­tion. „The dig­i­tal ‘haves” need to real­ize that there are dig­i­tal ‘have-nots” in every cul­ture, and that it matters.”

Dig­i­tal Natives face chal­lenges in cyper­space when it comes to iden­ti­ty for­ma­tion, pri­va­cy, and safe­ty; Dig­i­tal Natives need to devel­op the skills to know what kind of infor­ma­tion about them­selves to share with whom, and in what con­text. Here, says the author Urs Gasser „[…] the role of law is very lim­it­ed. Indeed edu­ca­tion- and tech­nol­o­gy-based approach­es are often much bet­ter suit­ed to make a con­tri­bu­tion to prob­lem solv­ing.” She sug­gests that the answer to the ques­tion ‘What is the role of law when shap­ing the future of the inter­net?” par­ents, teach­ers, or coach­es of Dig­i­tal Natives need to elab­o­rate and answer togeth­er. We should not del­e­gate it sim­ply to our sen­a­tors or the exec­u­tive branch. „Law­mak­ing in the dig­i­tal age, too, is a shared respon­si­bil­i­ty, espe­cial­ly when it comes to the future of our chil­dren” empha­sis­es Urs Gasser.

Suggestions for parents and teachers

Par­ents and edu­ca­tors have to care about the dig­i­tal lives and lifestyles of their kids and they need to improve their knowl­edge of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies too. They should engage in a very open and infor­mal dis­cus­sion with their kids about the ser­vices they are using, about their favourite web­sites, about the ways in which they com­mu­ni­cate with their friends, whether they often use Wikipedia, etc. „We should also show hon­est inter­est in their dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences, wher­ev­er and when­ev­er they might have had them”, say Urs Gasser. Par­ents can let kids show them online how things work, what their favourite sites look like, etc. They should not hes­i­tate to inter­vene if they learn about issues that their kids expe­ri­ence online and with which they are not com­fort­able. Teach­ers and par­ents should not treat the ‘two worlds” (‘real world” and ‘online world”) as sep­a­rate worlds just because they are more famil­iar with one of them.

[1] Born dig­i­tal — Under­stand­ing the first gen­er­a­tion of Dig­i­tal Natives
by John Pal­frey and Urs Gasser, Basic Books, New York, 2008