Culture

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Origins of Terms

by biverson | October 8, 2007 at 11:06 am

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This is from Marc Prensky who wrote about "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" in On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001.) I've been using the terms "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" since I read the article several years ago. My own offspring are 26 and 21. The eldest is just at the cut-off of the digital immigrants age. The youngest is so a digital native. Here's what Prensky says about the origin of the terms.

I ascribe the use of the metaphor in so many places not to my own brilliance – which I do not claim – but rather to the fact that it captures an important truth in a way that is instantly understandable to many people.

Still I have no problem in citing, if true, what others have said or published earlier. So if anyone has a citation (work, page number) of the use of the actual terms “Digital Native” and “Digital Immigrant” (individually or together) prior to my 2001 article in On The Horizon, please send it along.