‘Digital native’ is a term that is frequently used to refer to generations that were born with high availability of digital technologies and for whom their use comes naturally. There are a number of reasons why this notion is problematic and can have a negative impact in educational settings. This blog post is an invitation to do away with the myth of the digital native and get ready to help students navigate the complex waters of 21st century digital landscapes.
The birth of the ‘digital native’
The notion of the digital native became widely popular after Prensky’s 2001 articles Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (parts 1 and 2). He asserted that there is a discontinuity in the way teachers and students think and process information, the latter ones being natives in the language of computers, internet and video games. He described this new generation as one that is “accustomed to the twitch-speed, multitasking, random-access, graphics-first, active, connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world of their video games, MTV, and Internet are bored by most of today’s education, well meaning as it may be.” (Prensky, 2001b, p.5). These are comfortable ideas that fit well with our intuitive preconceptions, allowing for our confirmation bias to play in their favour. However, this description has a number of limitations.
A critical look at the term
To begin with, it is hard to define who the digital native generation is. Is it everyone born after 1980? When do you make the cut? Generations are not homogenous, a great variety in access, interests, contexts, means there will be great differences within the same age group. Assuming otherwise is a dangerous oversimplification. Also, the concept is not backed by research, and it can have harmful effects if taken at face value (Eynon, 2020). Let’s discuss this in depth.
- Firstly, while digital gaps have largely been reduced in previous years (71% youth worldwide had access to the internet in 2017, according to UNICEF), these are still prevalent in the Global South: access to reliable, affordable internet connections with enough data to make the most of the possibilities of the digital world remain inaccessible for many. The bridge in critical and effective use of digital technologies is even broader, as those who can access it through a computer, speak English or have a cultural background that has equipped them with digital skills, have a better quality experience than those who don’t. 56% of websites in 2017 were in English, which means that minorities have a smaller array of resources to access. Likewise, girls worldwide are at a disadvantage in terms of access. The digital world mirrors the inequalities in other areas (gender, socio economic context, cultural capital, etc.) and can even deepen them (UNICEF, 2017). As Eynon (2020, para. 20) very clearly points out regarding the recent COVID-19 crisis in which schools were closed in many countries, it “finally made visible to many the significant inequalities there are both within and across countries in relation to young people’s ability to access and use new technologies. Many were shocked by the extent of the problem.”
Covid-19 “finally made visible to many the significant inequalities there are both within and across countries in relation to young people’s ability to access and use new technologies. Many were shocked by the extent of the problem.”
Eynon (2020)
This aspect is one of the reasons why challenging the idea of digital natives is so paramount. It produces a false cosy feeling of digital equality that we are still struggling to achieve.
- Additionally, make no mistake: the fact that many kids and teens are able to intuitively make use of a number of apps, with an emphasis on social media, video watching and game playing, speaks more about the developers ability to generate appealing tools than about youth’s tech-savviness. It does not mean they are able to make the most out of the affordances of digital technologies, that they can safely navigate online, that they master everyday tools such as email or spreadsheets or that they can easily use them for collaboration. For example, how many of your students can effectively work on collaborative documents online, know when to reply to all (or not!) in an email thread or can organise large amounts of data to make sense of them?
Addressing digital literacies
Many teachers are incorrectly willing to accept that there isn’t much we need to teach students in relation to digital technologies, leaving them adrift in the troubled waters of the digital landscape of our times, and this affects less privileged students the most. Explicit efforts need to be made to bridge the gaps in effective uses of technologies and there is a need for well-defined educational objectives so teachers can guide students to help them become critical, informed explorers of the digital world through modelling and support.
A recent framework developed by Helsper and Vosloo for UNICEF (2022, p. 10) to address digital inequalities considers all this:
While some of the aspects mentioned in the framework above should be the focus of policy makers, it is clear that there are others in which schools and teachers have a big part to play: schools can undoubtedly shape students’ motivations and attitudes towards digital technologies as well as develop the necessary skills for students to become digitally literate.
Implications for English language teaching
So, what does this imply for remote language teaching and teaching in general? Basically, it means we need to incorporate digital literacies in our teaching practices as learning objectives, both in parallel and in dialogue with language learning aims. Rudd (2015, p. 25) asserts that digital literacy “includes the ability to understand how digital tools can be used meaningfully, and how they can be harnessed to solve problems and create opportunities that were not previously possible. Being digitally literate also means individuals can fully participate in democratic, economic and social processes in informed, safe and meaningful ways”. English teaching practices should address these and, as all other areas of education, need to be constantly updated to respond to changing times, challenges and tech developments, with pedagogy driving the decisions on how to go about them.
It is useful to refer to the Digital Literacies taxonomy developed by Dudeney, Hockly and Pegrum in 2014, which focuses on four main areas: language, information, connections and re-design. In relation with language, they call for the need to go beyond print literacy to include all the other forms of language that are present in our digital world and that have specific characteristics: hypertexts, mobile texting, multimedia, gaming, coding (learn more about this framework here). Dudeney suggests that concrete ways in which development of these literacies can be incorporated into English lessons is to add literacy, skill and tech aims into the typical unit lesson plan (click here for examples and more detail about this). These are clues as to steps forward to face the complex current educational challenges.
A call to action
The fact that the digital skills of teachers tends to be uneven makes it difficult to act, since many do not feel confident enough to lead digital literacy actions. As we have seen, teachers’ generation is not a reliable predictor of their level of digital literacy, so it is essential that schools and policy makers make the necessary investment on teacher education programmes that will empower them to take an active role in fulfilling their students' digital needs.
In conclusion, it's about time we did away with the myth of the digital native and find better metaphors that encourage teachers to help students learn to navigate the complexity of the digital world, equipping them with tools that will enable them to be critical and reflective users of digital technologies available and yet to come.
To learn more about myths in connection with digital technologies and teaching, check out this thought-provoking plenary by Lindsay Cladfield at IATEFL Liverpool 2019.
If this topic is of interest to you, stay tuned! An upcoming article will deal with online safety and we will be including some lesson ideas in our lesson ideas section.