Born Digital – Introduction

I’m starting off my thesis research with a book that has a similar purpose, methodology, concern, and scope. If only I could’ve written my thesis before John Palfrey and Urs Gasser were able to publish this primer to the digital world. In any case, I’m grateful for their research, and I’ll be quoting A TON from Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. 

Who are the Digital Natives? Well according to Palfrey and Gasser, they have the following characteristics:

• born after 1980, when social digital technologies (such as Usenet and bulletin board systems) came online
• have access to networked digital technologies
• have skills to use those technologies
• unlike Digital Immigrants, they live much of their lives online, without distinguishing between the online and the offline
• related to information differently
• perceive information to be malleable, something they can control and reshape in new and interesting ways (such as editing encyclopedia entries in Wikipedia)

Purpose of the Book 

Authors Palfrey and Gasser want to separate what we need to worry about from what’s not so scary, what we ought to resist from what we ought to embrace.

A general proposal – to promote engaged parenting, good education, and common sense.

Methodology 

Use of research from social scientists, psychologists,neuroscientists, etc.

Palfrey and Gasser conducted their own research by means of focus groups, asking questions about their use of technology, understanding of identity, etc.

Concerns 

There is becoming a huge divide between the haves and have nots. The divide is regional or national, as we can see many people groups or countries that do not have access to digital technology. This is the “digital divide”. There is also a digital literacy gap. How to appropriately navigate this digital world.

 

I find it funny that my first research book for my interdisciplinary thesis is a secular one that can be found on the bestseller’s lists at Amazon or Chapters. Hopefully this is indicative of my desire to be truly interdisciplinary, and not just remain with theology and other “Christian issues”.