Digital natives have more and more been shown to be digital illiterates. And I say this with compassion as a STEM teacher who thinks kids are great and smart in many, many ways, just not digitally.
Besides the much-talked about problems with kids growing up in the age of iPads and Chromebooks, which prevent any actual interactions with computers, kids are even bad at the internet.
I remember this as far back as 2011, when Osama bin Laden was killed. One of the highest trending questions on both Twitter and on Yahoo Answers was "who was Osama bin Laden?" A shocking number of people's first instinct when trying to find out information was not Google searching, but lazy-web asking complete strangers on message boards, and needing to wait around to find out someone's answer.
Since then I've noticed this kind of thing with my students more and more. They can do actual research if told to, but it's never their first instinct.
> Digital natives have more and more been shown to be digital illiterates.
Very interesting.
Your observation might be a generality.
I keep thinking of Marshall McLuhan, Neal Postman, and other media critics. How were they so prescient and clear-eyed about the sociology of broadcast and cable television? While the following generation was so oblivious once that those mediums were established?
Ditto the early critics of social media, like Clay Shirky.
The best folk theory that I've come up with is that a fish doesn't know anything about water.
Besides the much-talked about problems with kids growing up in the age of iPads and Chromebooks, which prevent any actual interactions with computers, kids are even bad at the internet.
I remember this as far back as 2011, when Osama bin Laden was killed. One of the highest trending questions on both Twitter and on Yahoo Answers was "who was Osama bin Laden?" A shocking number of people's first instinct when trying to find out information was not Google searching, but lazy-web asking complete strangers on message boards, and needing to wait around to find out someone's answer.
Since then I've noticed this kind of thing with my students more and more. They can do actual research if told to, but it's never their first instinct.