Thinking about Buzzwords

Intuitive is a buzzword we hear batted around. In fact, it is the go to adjective for marketers in computer or software development firms.  At the risk of sounding cynical, there hasn’t been such a self-serving motive for linking terms since the US government linked Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. The term “intuitive” has become the bane of anyone’s existence who tries to teach computer courses. “I can’t get this to work. Isn’t it supposed to be intuitive?” Since students young and old consider themselves born with intuition, learning is no longer necessary. Lack of knowledge or skill as a cause of incompetence is not even on the radar and no longer even considered a problem. The problem now, by default, is a product that isn’t intuitive enough.

Another one of the buzz phrases getting tossed around a lot these days is digital native. You can’t discuss technology and schools without hearing these two words linked. At education conferences, there might even be a drinking game associated the moniker. But, lately, I’ve been asking myself, “What exactly is a digital native?”

When I first heard the phrase used, I had the idea that those using it were inferring that someone born in the digital age was imbued with some special technological power and ability to use computers. The term made me feel set apart, left behind, never to completely understand the techno culture that was born and developed in my lifetime; however, as I began to observe digital natives and their interactions with technology, it became obvious that they didn’t necessarily know more about computers. As I was explaining, for the hundredth time, the difference between turning off the display screen and turning off the computer, an idea started to take shape. I started watching what these digital natives were doing with technology. Working together in a group was about sitting in a line, each connected to the other via the computer and a shared document. I noticed, too, that during dinner parties, right at the table, digital natives have no shame whipping out their cell phones to receive and answer text messages or update their Facebook pages. The social concept of looking someone in the eye when having a conversation or the very idea that the living people in front of you take precedence over the “technologically present” is a thing of the past.

That was when it occurred to me: digital natives didn’t belong to a species of computer geniuses, they were just socially different than their predecessors. They were the human equivalent of animals born in captivity and their interactions with humans had evolved and shifted because of the technology they grew up using.  Digital interactions are every bit as real to the digital native as a face to face talk.

As my hypothesis began to take shape, I started to account for other social differences I was seeing in the students I taught. Take the markedly shorter attention span, the increased need for visual stimulation, the lack of motivation to stick with a difficult task and problem solve, the lowered tolerance for frustration, the constant need for external motivators and approval, the decreased amount of time spent alone in quiet reflection. The list goes on.

I also noticed differences in the people I grew up with. The idea of time at work and time away from work has become a thing of the past, that distinction lost with cell phones, email, working from home, video conferencing. Geography is no longer a determiner of availability, and the concept of the nine-to-five job is an anachronism, a reference to a bygone era. My contemporaries and those younger are the ones raising the digital natives and are the ones who have replaced the pacifier with the smartphone, Saturday morning cartoons with non-stop video games and YouTube, the family intimacy associated with long car trips with the individual video monitor. 

It goes without saying that responding to an ever-changing environment is part of the human endeavor; it’s what life and survival are about and it is something that human beings are particularly good at. But, since many of the changes we now see involve adapting and reacting to a computerized world that we are altering at a quicker and quicker pace, can we ever tease out the good habits from the bad? Can we even evaluate in the short term, what is going to be beneficial or detrimental in the long term? The digital native is our own creation and all the social changes that come with raising them, will be ours to deal with for generations to come.


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As always, I would be remiss if I did not direct you to the musings of my better blogging two thirds.

Ms Karen Lovett

Ms Julie Forbes