Thursday, July 10, 2008

How the Google Generation Thinks Differently

In a Times Online article Catherine O'Brien is lamenting about her son's style of studying for exams. The article has some interesting observations and at the end she summarizes the difference between those who grew up in the digital age, and those who didn't. I'm not sure this a result of when we came to the digital world or simple age. As a young person (1960's and 70's) I was very much like the "natives" just with different types of inputs.

NATIVES v IMMIGRANTS

Digital natives

Like receiving information quickly from multiple media sources.
Like parallel processing and multi-tasking.
Like processing pictures, sounds and video before text.
Like random access to hyperlinked multimedia information.
Like to network with others.
Like to learn “just in time”.

Digital immigrants

Like slow and controlled release of information from limited sources.
Like singular processing and single or limited tasking.
Like processing text before pictures, sounds and video.
Like to receive information linearly, logically and sequentially.
Like to work independently.
Like to learn “just in case”.