Abstract
The article looks at the differences between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants.” Digital natives are the new generation of young people born into the digital age, while “digital immigrants” are those who learnt to use computers at some stage during their adult life. Whereas digital natives are assumed to be inherently technology-savvy, digital immigrants are usually assumed to have some difficulty with information technology.
The paper suggests that there is a continuum rather than a rigid dichotomy between digital natives and digital immigrants, and this continuum is best conceptualized as digital fluency. Digital fluency is the ability to reformulate knowledge and produce information to express oneself creatively and appropriately in a digital environment. The authors propose a tentative conceptual model of digital fluency that outlines factors that have a direct and indirect impact on digital fluency namely, demographic characteristics, organizational factors, psychological factors, social influence, opportunity, behavioral intention and actual use of digital technologies.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agarwal R, Prasad J (1998) A conceptual and operational definition of personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology. Information Systems Research 9(2):204–215
Ajzen I (1991) The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50(2):179–211
Barron B, Walter S, Martin C, Schatz C (2010) Predictors of creative computing participation and profiles of experience in two Silicon valley middle schools. Computers & Education 54(1):178–189
Bennett S, Maton K (2010) Beyond the “digital natives” debate: towards a more nuanced understanding of students’ technology experiences. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 26(5):321–331
Bradley D, Noonan P, Nugent H, Scales B (2008) Review of Australian higher education: final report. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra (December)
Brown C, Czerniewicz L (2010) Debunking the “digital native”: beyond digital apartheid, towards digital democracy. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 26(5):357–369
Calvani A, Cartelli A, Fini A, Ranieri M (2009) Models and instruments for assessing digital competence at school. Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society (English Version) 4(3):183–193
Ching C, Basham J, Jang E (2005) The legacy of the digital divide. Urban Education 40(4):394–411
Clearswift (2011) Work life web 2011. Work Life Web (August)
Compeau D, Higgins C (1995) Computer self-efficacy: development of a measure and initial test. MIS Quarterly 19(2):189–211
Cotten S, Hale T, Moroney M, O’Neal L, Borch C (2011) Using affordable technology to decrease digital inequality: results from Birmingham’s one laptop per child XO laptop project. Information, Communication & Society 14(4):424–444
Davis FD (1986) A technology acceptance model for empirically testing new end-user information systems: theory and results. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Davis FD (1989) Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly 3:319–340
Dewan S, Riggins FJ (2005) The digital divide: current and future research directions. Journal of the Association for Information Systems 6(12):298–337
Dimaggio P, Hargittai E (2001) From the “digital divide” to “digital inequality”: studying Internet use as penetration increase. Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Eckhardt A, Laumer S, Weitzel T (2009) Who influences whom? Analyzing workplace referents’ social influence on it adoption and non-adoption. Journal of Information Technology 24(1):11–24
Farrell E (2005) Among freshman, a growing digital divide. The Chronicle of Higher Education
Ferro E, Helbig NC, Gil-Garcia JR (2011) The role of IT literacy in defining digital divide policy needs. In: Proc 5th int conf on electronic government, vol 28(1), pp 3–10
Fischer G (2005) Computational literacy and fluency: being independent of high-tech scribes. In: Engel J, Vogel R, Wessolowski S (eds) Strukturieren – Modellieren – Kommunizieren. Leitbild mathematischer und informatischer Aktivitäten. Franzbecker, Hildesheim, pp 217–230
Gilster P (1997) Digital literacy. Meridian. Wiley, New York
Goode J (2010) The digital identity divide: how technology knowledge impacts college students. New Media & Society 12(3):497–513
Grimley M, Allan M (2010) Towards a pre-teen typology of digital media. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 26(5):571–584
Gudmundsdottir G (2010) When does ICT support education in South Africa? The importance of teachers’ capabilities and the relevance of language. Information Technology for Development 16(3):174–190
Guo RX, Dobson T, Petrina S (2008) Digital natives, digital immigrants: an analysis of age and ICT competency in teacher education. Journal of Educational Computing Research 38(3):235–254
Hargittai E (2002) Second-level digital divide: differences in people’s online skills. First Monday 7(4):1–19
Hargittai E (2010) Digital na(t)ives? Variation in Internet skills and uses among members of the “net generation”. Sociological Inquiry 80(1):92–113
Hargittai E, Litt E (2011) The tweet smell of celebrity success: explaining variation in Twitter adoption among a diverse group of young adults. New Media & Society 13(5):824–842
Hosein A, Ramanau R, Jones C (2010) Learning and living technologies: a longitudinal study of first year students’ frequency and competence in the use of ICT. Learning, Media and Technology 35(4):403–418
Howe N, Strauss W (2007) The next 20 years: how customer and workforce attitudes will evolve. Harvard Business Review 85(7–8):41–52, 191
Huff AS (2008) Literature review: designing research for publication. Sage, Thousand Oak, pp 147–178
Huffaker D (2005) The educated blogger: using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education Journal 13(2):91–98
Hughes J (2007) The ability-motivation-opportunity framework for behavior research in IS. In: Proc 40th Hawaii international conference on system sciences, pp 250a
Johnson Controls Research (2011) Why and how businesses must tailor workspaces to young workers
Jones C, Czerniewicz L (2010) Describing or debunking? The net generation and digital natives. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 26(5):317–320
Jones C, Healing G (2010) Net generation students: agency and choice and the new technologies. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 26(5):344–356
Jones C, Ramanau R, Cross S, Graham H (2010) Net generation or digital natives: is there a distinct new generation entering university? Computers & Education 54(3):722–732
Jung Y, Peng W, Moran M, Jin S-AA, McLaughlin M, Cody M et al. (2010) Low-income minority seniors’ enrollment in a cybercafe: psychological barriers to crossing the digital divide. Educational Gerontology 36(3):193–212
Kaare BH, Brandtzæg PB, Heim J, Endestad T (2007) In the borderland between family orientation and peer culture: the use of communication technologies among Norwegian tweens. New Media & Society 9(4):603–624
Kennedy G, Dalgarno B, Bennett S, Gray K, Waycott J, Judd T et al (2009) Educating the net generation: a handbook of findings for practice and policy. Higher Education Australian Learning and Teaching Council
Kennedy G, Dalgarno B, Gray K (2007) The net generation are not big users of web 2.0 technologies: preliminary findings. In: Proc ASCILITE, Singapore, 2007, pp 517–525
Kennedy G, Judd T, Dalgarno B, Waycott J (2010) Beyond natives and immigrants: exploring types of net generation students. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 26(5):332–343
Kennedy G, Judd TS, Churchward A, Gray K, Krause K-L (2008) First year students’ experiences with technology: are they really digital natives. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 24(1):108–122
Koufaris M (2002) Applying the technology acceptance model and flow theory to online consumer behavior. Information Systems Research 13(2):205–223
Ktoridou D, Eteokleous-Grigoriou N (2011) Developing digital immigrants’ computer literacy: the case of unemployed women. Campus-Wide Information Systems 28(3):154–163
Kvasny L, Keil M (2006) The challenges of redressing the digital divide: a tale of two US cities. Information Systems Journal 16:23–53
Laumer S, Eckhardt A, Trunk N (2010) Do as your parents say? Analyzing IT adoption influencing factors for full and under age applicants. Information Systems Frontiers 12(2):169–183
Li Y, Ranieri M (2010) Are “digital natives” really digitally competent? A study on Chinese teenagers. British Journal of Educational Technology 41:1029–1042
Lu J, Yu C-S, Liu C, Yao JE (2003) Technology acceptance model for wireless Internet. Internet Research 13(3):206–222
Luu K, Freeman JG (2011) An analysis of the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) and scientific literacy in Canada and Australia. Computers & Education 56(4):1072–1082
Malliari A, Korobili S, Zapounidou S (2011) Exploring the information seeking behavior of Greek graduate students: a case study set in the University of Macedonia. International Information and Library Review 43(2):79–91
Martin CL, Eisenbud L, Rose H (1995) Children’s gender-based reasoning about toys. Child Development 66(5):1453–1471
Menchen-Trevino E, Hargittai E (2011) Young adults’ credibility assessment of Wikipedia. Information, Communication & Society 14(1):24–51
Moore GC, Benbasat I (1991) Development of an instrument to measure the perceptions of adopting an information technology innovation. Information Systems Research 2(3):192–222
Nasah A, DaCosta B, Kinsell C, Seok S (2010) The digital literacy debate: an investigation of digital propensity and information and communication technology. Educational Technology Research & Development 58(5):531–555
National Research Council (1999) Being fluent with information technology. National Academy Press, Washington
Nedbal D, Auinger A, Hochmeier A, Holzinger A (2012) A systematic success factor analysis in the context of Enterprise 2.0: results of an exploratory analysis comprising digital immigrants and digital natives. E-Commerce and Web Technologies:163–175
Oblinger D, Oblinger J (2005) Educating the net generation. Educause, Washington
Papastergiou M, Gerodimos V, Antoniou P (2011) Multimedia blogging in physical education: effects on student knowledge and ICT self-efficacy. Computers & Education 57(3):1998–2010
Papert S, Resnick M (1995) Technological fluency and the representation of knowledge: proposal to the national science foundation. MIT Media Laboratory, Cambridge
Perillo S (2007) Reaching generation Y to be or not to be – relevant. Australian Anglican Schools Network, Melbourne, pp 17–19
Pittaway L, Robertson M, Munir K, Denyer D, Neely A (2004) Networking and innovation: a systematic review of the evidence. International Journal of Management Reviews 5–6(3–4):137–168
Prensky M (2001a) Digital natives, digital immigrants, part 2. On the Horizon 9(5):1–6, MCB UP Ltd
Prensky M (2001b) Digital natives, digital immigrants, Part 1. On the horizon 9(5), MCB UP Ltd
Rainie L (2006) Digital natives invade the workplace: young people may be newcomers to the world of work, but it’s their bosses who are immigrants into the digital world. PEW Internet & American Life Project:1–5
Salajan FD, Schönwetter DJ, Cleghorn BM (2010) Student and faculty inter-generational digital divide: fact or fiction? Computers & Education 55(3):1393–1403
Selwyn N (2008) An investigation of differences in undergraduates’ academic use of the Internet. Active Learning in Higher Education 9(1):11–22
Stern MJ, Adams AE, Elsasser S (2009) Digital inequality and place: the effects of technological diffusion on Internet proficiency and usage across rural, suburban, and urban counties. Sociological Inquiry 79(4):391–417
Strauss W, Howe N (1992) Generations: the history of America’s future, 1584 to 2069. Morrow, New York
Sykes TA, Venkatesh V, Gosain S (2009) Model of acceptance with peer support: a social network perspective to understand employees’ system use. MIS Quarterly 33(2):371–393
Tapscott D (1998) Growing up digital: the rise of the net generation. McGraw-Hill, New York
Thornham H, McFarlane A (2011) Discourses of the digital native: use, non-use, and perceptions of use in BBC Blast. Information, Communication & Society 14(2):258–279
Tømte C, Hatlevik OE (2011) Gender-differences in self-efficacy ICT related to various ICT-user profiles in Finland and Norway. How do self-efficacy, gender and ICT-user profiles relate to findings from PISA 2006. Computers & Education 57(1):1416–1424
Valtonen T, Dillon P, Hacklin S, Väisänen P (2010) Net generation at social software: challenging assumptions, clarifying relationships and raising implications for learning. International Journal of Educational Research 49(6):210–219
van den Beemt A, Akkerman S, Simons PRJ (2010) Pathways in interactive media practices among youths. Learning, Media and Technology 35(4):419–434
van Dijk J (2006) Digital divide research, achievements and shortcomings. Poetics 34(4–5):221–235
van Dijk J, van Deursen A (2008) Inequalities of digital skills and how to overcome them. In: Handbook of research on overcoming digital divides: constructing an equitable and competitive information society. Information Science Publishing, Hershey, pp 278–291
Venkatesh V (2000) Determinants of perceived ease of use: integrating control, intrinsic motivation, and emotion into the technology acceptance model. Information Systems Research 11(4):342–365
Venkatesh V, Davis FD (2000) A theoretical extension of the technology acceptance model: four longitudinal field studies. Management Science 46(2):186–204
Vodanovich S, Sundaram D, Myers MD (2010) Research commentary – digital natives and ubiquitous information systems. Information Systems Research 21(4):711–723
Volman M, van Eck E, Heemskerk I, Kuiper E (2005) New technologies, new differences. Gender and ethnic differences in pupils’ use of ICT in primary and secondary education. Computers & Education 45(1):35–55
Wang E, Myers MD, Sundaram D (2012) Digital natives and digital immigrants: towards a model of digital fluency. In: Proc ECIS. http://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2012/39/. Accessed 2012-07-08
Waycott J, Bennett S, Kennedy G, Dalgarno B, Gray K (2010) Digital divides? Student and staff perceptions of information and communication technologies. Computers & Education 54(4):1202–1211
Wei K-K, Teo H-H, Chan HC, Tan BCY (2011) Conceptualizing and testing a social cognitive model of the digital divide. Information Systems Research 22(1):170–187
Yavuz A, Odabaşı HF, Kuzu A (2011) Perceptions of preservice teachers regarding the integration of information and communication technologies in Turkish education faculties. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 10(3):175–184
Zhao L, Lu Y, Huang W, Wang Q (2010) Internet inequality: the relationship between high school students’ Internet use in different locations and their Internet self-efficacy. Computers & Education 55(4):1405–1423
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the editor, associate editor and reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments on this article. This article is a significantly revised version of a paper submitted to the European Conference on Information Systems 2012 and published in its proceedings (Wang et al. 2012).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Accepted after two revisions by Prof. Dr. Buxmann.
This article is also available in German in print and via http://www.wirtschaftsinformatik.de: Wang Q(E), Myers MD, Sundaram D (2013) Digital Natives und digital Immigrants. Entwicklung eines Modells digitaler Gewandtheit. WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK. doi: 10.1007/s11576-013-0390-2.
Electronic Supplementary Material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, Q.(., Myers, M.D. & Sundaram, D. Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Bus Inf Syst Eng 5, 409–419 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-013-0296-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-013-0296-y