The Digi-crib Kids

It seems that everyone born with a computer in his or her crib (“digital natives” or DNs) differs from those of us who were not (“digital immigrants” or DIs). Their brains develop in a different way. The way they learn is different. The jury is still out as to whether this is good or bad.

Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, cites numerous studies that show young DNs’ disaffection with reading. In one case, over 40 percent of college freshmen said they did not enjoy reading serious books and articles, doing so “only when I have to.” In another survey of high school graduates who went on to college, one quarter of them said they never read a word of literature, sports, travel, politics, or anything else for either enjoyment or illumination. A 2004 report indicated that 20 percent of entering college freshmen end up in remedial writing courses and even more in remedial reading courses.

But not everyone agrees that reading or writing is still pertinent. Bauerlein offers this from a digital native writing on a USA Today blog: “Today’s young people don’t suffer from illiteracy; they just suffer from e-literacy. We can’t spell and we don’t know synonyms because we don’t need to know. What smart young person would spend hours learning words that can be accessed at the click of a button? Spell-check can spell. Shift + F7 produces synonyms.” Jonathan Fanton, president of the MacArthur Foundation, asserts that digital youth create a new kind of literacy that goes beyond the traditions of reading and writing. Science writer Steven Johnson, appearing on the Colbert Report, touted the digital game Civilization IV because 12-year-olds who play it can “recreate the entire course of human economic and technological history.”