Digital Natives Analysis

In Boyd’s chapter on exploring if today’s youth are truly digital natives, she claims that today’s youth does not fully understand digital literacy and should not be referred to as digital natives because the term does not accurately represent the level of skills today’s youth has. Boyd introduces the idea of today’s youth as being digital natives and how that separates them from the rest of the world. She then states that in this view of thinking, “teens are digital natives, and adults, supposedly less knowledgeable about technology and less capable of developing these skills, are digital immigrants” (Boyd 176). This is where Boyd begins to present the issues surrounding calling youth digital natives and why the term should be avoided. Boyd

By this she explains how today’s youth simply do not master the skills of technology and research for a level that would consider them digital natives. Not only does Boyd explain why today’s youth aren’t masters of technology, but she also present why they also don’t understand the limits that accompany technology and how it effects the youth’s experiences. Boyd specifically discusses the algorithms that are used by companies like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo News to filter what we see and replace it with what they think we want to see. Boyd emphasizes the idea that, “The notion of an algorithm is foreign to most people, including most youth” (185). That shows that even though today’s youth has always been involved with technology, they are still not aware of every aspect involved with their exchange with technology. The results we get from these search engines are personalized and we don’t always realize that. Boyd presents tons of evidence in this chapter as to why today’s youth should not be considered digital natives and how the youth and adults of today have a lot to

This article was published by the Chronicle of Higher Education and was written by experts Alison Head, director of Project Information Literacy, and John Wihbey, managing editor of Journalists Resource. Head and Wihbey looked into what employers expect from new employees on a technological level. They discovered that these employers expected candidates to be able to not only search information online, but also understand the information they received. They then continue to explain that it was discovered that employees straight out of college lacked basic research skills by stating that, "The skills that students cultivate through traditional assignments-writing essays based on library research-are far different from those required to perform efficient, high-level, accurate research in the digital world" (Head and Wihbey). Head and Wihbey use that speculation to further prove the point that today's aspiring employees are not as competent with research as one may have thought. They explain how that lack of competency produces things like "skill gaps" and how everyone varies in their level of research. Head and Wihbey end the article by offering a solution to the problem by stating, "Students