How+are+digital+natives+different?

In a multitude of ways, digital natives live very different lives from those students that the current school system is designed to teach. In a matter of seconds, digital natives are able to find sources of research, just by typing one word into a search engine. Not only that, but these search engines are available in the palms of their hands – on their handheld digital data devices, such as Blackberrys or iPhones. These devices have the ability to be used silently and discreetly during classes, exams, or even just as a manner of quickly completing a homework assignment. With the emergence of social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, instantly accessible on these digital data devices, digital natives have modes of expressing their likes and dislikes, personal relationships, and hourly thoughts that those who were not ‘born digital’ could ever have imagined. 

It is not only their behaviour in school that sets them apart, though. Digital natives have the ability to be in constant contact with their friends, relatives, and even people they may barely know. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, allow basically anyone to send a ‘friend request’ to anyone else. If that person chooses to accept this request, then they will each have access to one another’s photographs, public conversations on the site, the virtual groups that they belong to, and anything else that each of these people decide to display on their profiles. By allowing so many people into their digital social lives, digital natives live their daily lives quite differently from others .

A digital native displays much more of his or her own life for others to see. Personal p rivacy is compromised, because anyone could type in someone's name while searching Facebook, and depending on the searched person’s privacy settings, any amount of information could be available, including a display picture that anyone could copy and paste to their leisure. A site on digital natives states that: “Technology can organize, highlight, and take out of context info that's already available online. For example, the New York Times recently reported that Rudy Giuliani's daughter supported Barack Obama on Facebook. After this was reported her profile was taken down. This incident shows that much of the information on the internet is available for anyone to see” (digitalnative.org). 

Regardless of their sometimes risky, too-trusting behaviour on the Internet, digital natives truly tend to know their way around the digital world. They are experts at retrieving immediate information, finding instant entertainment, and, when it comes to social networking sites, discovering gossip. One website comments on the daily life of a digital native: “Today, youth collaborate on Facebook, play multiuser video games; text each other incessantly; and share files for school, work, or just for fun” (timwindsor.com). When fun, easy tasks like the ones quoted are so readily available at a person's fingertips, it is only natural to assume that they will consume a large part of a digital native's day. Below is an actual commercial for a Blackberry, which displays all of the different ways that a student may make use of this digital data device. Judging by the music, the style, and the applications featured on this Blackberry, it is clear to see that it is geared towards the younger, digital native generation - the ones who are occupying high school classrooms at this moment. It is strange to think that a digital native's daily normalcy contains actions that were not even options for someone who was not born into this digital world. 

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