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What is the Digital Natives project? • Why a Wiki on Digital Natives? • Table of Contents • Related Research Projects

What is the Digital Natives project?

An academic research team -- joining people from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland -- is hosting and working on the core of this wiki, which illustrates the beginning stages of a larger research project on Digital Natives.

"Digital Natives" are those people for whom the internet and related technologies are givens, whereas "Digital Immigrants" migrated to these technologies later in life (Prensky, 2001). Digital Immigrants know how life existed in the pre-networked society, whereas Digital Natives take networked communication as the foundation of their lives.

The focus of this research is on exploring the impacts of this generational demarcation. Through discussions with youth, the project will address the issues and benefits of this digital media landscape and gain valuable insight into how youth make sense of their experiences online. This information will help us make recommendations to educators and legislators in a way that supports young people and harnesses the exciting possibilities their digital fluency presents.

Why a Wiki on Digital Natives?

This wiki is a community work-space for posting information about Digital Natives. Please create an account or log in and start contributing. This site is particularly for parents, teachers, researchers, and DNs themselves to talk about what it means to be born digital and the implications of generational shifts in how people use technology.

We hope in particular that teachers and parents will use this wiki as a place to build out pages where they collaborate on the development of teaching ideas, best practices -- even jointly to create syllabi for different fields.

We encourage you to join in, though we ask that you use your name or a persistent pseudonym if you care to post. The most helpful things would be 1) to build out the narratives, the problems, the possible solutions, and the relevant research/articles for each of the topics we've set up so far or 2) to set up new topics or sections that you'd like to see similar work on by the community.

To begin contributing, please email us at: digitalnatives(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu so we may verify your account.

Have a video related to DNs? An audio file? A blog post? A bookmark? Link to them from here from the relevant section of the wiki. Or create a new section to fit your content. And feel free to use the "DigitalNatives" tag across taxonomies--Technorati, del.icio.us, all the rest. There's no reason why this wiki has to be dry and boring. Rich media will help us all understand the phenomenon better. So join in!

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Life of Digital Natives

What is a digital native? How does the generational divide impact the legal, societal, and educational realms? This section is aimed primarily at introducing the life of a digital native, in addition to the various concepts we will be exploring through this research project.

Digital Identity

Amidst a digital landscape that offers up a constant explosion of information – and influence - natives assert their personal thoughts and experiences, as well as their own political beliefs. digital natives carry this theme of personalization into their wider lives – by creating and ‘showing their own’ in order to – among many other reasons – assert themselves amongst a sea of information and influence.

Digital Safety

The digital world is inherently more vulnerable to malicious intent via badware, viruses, hackers, etc. Some argue that youth are more susceptible to sexual predators and bullies through cyberspace as well; however, often “new” dangers are “real world” threats now encountered through different mediums. There is a history of panic surrounding the introduction of new media forms into society, and a careful, objective strategy is needed to protect our young people without hindering their development.

Digital Privacy

Most digital natives (DNs) live online, 24/7, where everything done is recorded for posterity. Some DNs call it expression. Some digital immigrants feel it’s shifting our notions of privacy. Forums for education and discussion around online sharing practices, as well as legal dialogue about the documentation and availability of private information, have become crucial considerations for our society.

Digital Creativity

Just as an artist may create a sculpture from materials found in the wild, digital natives view the media landscape as their “natural habitat” from which they can pull resources for creativity, expression, and commerce. The future balance of expression and property issues will be an important legal discussion in the years ahead.

Digital Piracy

Most adults in today’s society recognize the consequences of theft. To them, illegally downloading a song or ripping a DVD carries the same weight as walking out of the grocery store with the an unpaid gallon of milk. Digital Natives, on the other hand, are growing up in a post-Napster world where most of their peers condone casual piracy. From watching uploaded TV shows to getting an upcoming album or movie before the rest of the neighborhood, the youth’s incentives to pirate media significantly outweigh the possible consequences.

Digital Information Overload

Digital Information Quality

Digital Opportunities

Digital Education

Questions for Discussion

How sound a methodology is using one online socialization tool (like Facebook) as a vehicle to explore issues of identity, creativity, and safety?

How do we explore the nuances of the participation gap, taking into account the impact of social inequality and parental fluency?

Who is our digital native? Do we accept the premise that digital natives process information in a different way than immigrants? How do we empirically explore the digital generation gap?

Does the technology develop first, or the social norms about how the tools are used? Are the technological limitations of these tools transforming the way natives socialize and understand themselves?

How do youth in different countries use online socialization tools differently, and what is the significance of these differences? How do on-line social activities affect off-line identity development?

Related Research Projects

• Global Kids - A NYC nonprofit that promotes digital participation among diverse youth, Global Kids asked more than 400 youth to participate in online discussions and communities, and to write essays about how they use, and what intrigues them about digital media.

• MIT | New Media Literacies project (NML) - "NML is developing a theoretical framework and hands-on curriculum for K-12 students that integrates new media tools into broader educational, expressive and cultural frameworks."

• Mills College - "This project is focused on expanding the California Survey of Civic Capacities and Commitments, an ongoing survey of high school students that explores how digital media has influenced their civic participation."

• Northwestern University | Web Use Project - "The study focuses on a diverse group of college students' Internet uses, participation and skill, and examines the relationship between the increasing spread of information technologies and social inequality."

• Project Zero | Ethical Perspectives on Young Persons' Use of Digital Media - "This project explores the impact of digital media on young people's ethical development, and develops a curriculum to foster ethical use of digital media."

• Stanford University/University of Chicago, Center for Urban School Improvement - "How can digital media enhance the learning environment for young people? This project is studying the after-school digital media program at Center for Urban School Improvement in Chicago to find out. They will determine how the program leads young people to seek out new learning opportunities, develop the skills necessary to work in a digital environment, and support their identity development."

• University of California, Berkeley/USC | Digital Youth Research - Explores how kids use digital media in their everyday lives, with a focus on relationships, games, digital divide, and creativity. Focus is on spaces outside of schools.

• University of Oslo | Mediatized Stories. Mediation perspectives on digital storytelling among youth. - Four-year international project that "explores how people – youth in particular – use self-representation in digital storytelling to shape and share their lives, and tries to understand these processes through theories of mediation and mediatization across media studies and the field of education."

What We're Reading this Week

• From Facebook To a Yearbook, Teens Get a Jolt - WashingtonPost

• Study: Students Don't Understand Copyright Rules - Broadcasting & Cable

• Smile: You're Always on Camera - Forbes

• Are Children Being Held Hostage by Parental Fears? - Spiked Online