Individual Paper
Topic:

Explain the need for understanding different intergenerational attitudes of people towards technology and the implications it has for facilitating communicating between digital natives and digital immigrations.

HO Nancy Hiu Kwan

Introduction With the growth of time, the role of technology is getting more and more significant where technological products are commonly found in today‟s society and everyone generally equips with more than 2 gadgets to deal with their daily business. It is observed that majority of people flips on their smartphone during the ride or in meal are teenagers and young adults, they do with no reason but treat it as a habit. Since those digital natives can hardly live without the electronic devices, feel uncomfortable without them in hands and play with it (smartphone) regardless of the location and time can therefore said as an addiction. And now, it raises a question of whether the rapid advancement of technology betters our life or we are determined by technology? The above controversial topic often comes with diverse respondents amongst different generations, where teenagers may usually agree with technology improves their life in overall despite of some drawbacks brought by those digital technologies as they get used to the online space and possible to handle all the matters by their own; whereas the elder generation may have a different comments and believe technology undoubtedly better off our lives, yet more drawbacks are brought at the same time. As attitudes towards uses of technology are diverse across different generation, hence in order to give further more details, this paper will start by making a comparison between parents and children, their attitudes and practices towards technology, follow by teenager‟s confidence versus parents worries, then end up with giving some solutions to bridge the divergence of two generations. Digital natives were born between years 1981 to 2000, feel comfortable with technology as well as learn and adapt new things quickly; while Digital immigrants are people who are older, not comfortable with digital technology, mainly are the parents or teachers of the digital natives (Prensky, 2001). Misunderstanding 1 - Attitudes In terms of the attitudes towards the use of technology (i.e. computer, smartphone), digital natives and digital immigrants are entirely different. Whenever children are being asked how to function with the technology by their parents, they do not understand why their parents are that stupid and often answering with an annoying tone. They believe technology is just as simple as doing sum, it does not have to teach and able to function with once the technology is in our hands. In addition, teens hate and disagree with parents kept asking the same question, like how to go on to the internet, where their reactions are super slow, can only concentrate on a single thing and go with step-by-step. Whereas, parents treat the multi-tasking practiced by children as an impossible thing and disbelieve they can finish the thing perfectly as
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long as they are distracted. Next, parents do not agree with children glued on their digital devices always regardless of time and location as they consider children only having fun and leave their studies aside. Lastly, information can never be received properly by just looking on their phones and computers instead of the traditional printed news or books. Youngsters used to treat those digital technologies as normal things that can be easily managed. They have a high ability on parallel processing and multi-tasking, for instance, listening to music or watching YouTube clips while writing an essay. In addition, they would love to do research from online as they function best when networked and feel relaxed when using it. Accessing information from online is highly efficient and effective with just a few clicks after entering the key words into the searching engine. It however shows teenagers are over-reliance on internet for information collection. They are not serious at work at all, copying all the resources they got without doing any analyses, where the aim of training up student‟s critical thinking by doing research can never be reached. While for the latter party, since parents do not born in the year of blooming technology, by this means they are unfamiliar over technologies and feel uncomfortable or even sacred by the use of devices as they believe it is hard to control. Yet, most of the parents in nowadays are still eager to take part in learning how to use as to shorten the distance between their children. They learn new things with a serious attitude, feel anxious and always alert of the surroundings while using. Unlike the teens, digital immigrates can hardly focus on more than one thing in a single time, that can easily be distracted. Also, they would prefer text than graphics as they think words are often more clear and in details whereas graphics can be misunderstood easily. Misunderstanding 2 - Language uses and the way they speak Besides, the language uses and the way they speak are another great divergence. The language used by children for communication would generally be simplified and informal, such as „afk‟ means away from keyboard or/ „ttyl‟ means talk to you later, as they would prefer to make the message as short as possible where time can be saved from texting. Additionally, with the longtime of practice, teenagers would start to forget the proper way of writing a letter to someone, results in a problem of employees in current society losing the ability of writing a formal letter with an appropriate format. Caused by their bad habits, they would also find writing a whole complete sentence is challenging. In the meanwhile, owing to they would rather send an instant message instead of making a phone call, and spend most of their time glued with computer or other electronic devices, they are gradually losing their socializing
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skills, find it difficult to make a normal face-to-face communication, and think the process is extremely painful. Oppositely to the previous one, parents have their own "digital immigrant accent", though they are keen on learning and adapting the new environment, yet to a small extent that parents are still retaining part of their old language which the “accent” can hardly be changed. Or whenever they receive an email from someone, they would prefer to print it out and write in a piece of paper instead of reading and making the reply directly on computer. Next, words are typed completely and often confused by those simplified messages sent by their child. Parents don‟t get used to the short form and regard those messages are too casual and find it improper when they are talking of a very serious topic. They would rather to make a phone call or face to face communication if necessary, as less confusion would be made during texting as well as time used in texting is in fact time-consuming, as a result direct conversation is more efficient and effective. Nevertheless, children would believe as their parents are new to technology, they do not fully understand the advantages brought by technologies so that parents would find it is uncomfortable to the use of sending message, plus use of simplified words would probably make the whole conversation become more casual and interesting. Misunderstanding 3 - Worries Concerning on the worries over the usage of technology, parents are often the party that concern the most, that the act between the younger and elder generation are absolutely different in relation to the privacy and safety problem. Parents do not understand with the way that teens disclose all of their personal information online, where heaps of troubles may therefore results due to an extremely low awareness on the needs of protecting their privacy. However, youngsters may consider the posting of information is a way of meeting new friends, the reactions made by parents are thereby too over. In fact, there are always drawbacks in the use of everything, hence it is needless to worry too much and would better to look at the use of technology in a usual way. Since children are relatively open-minded, they love to disclose and share their personal information on to the social network with the purpose of making more new friends. They believe in everyone and never care of their personal information will be stolen by the offenders and have a low attention on to those criminal affairs. Never seek for help even they are encountering trouble and not knowing how to deal with, thus, the matter used to be very worst until their parents aware of it. Being a very traditional person, parents used to be so sensitive towards posting of their personal information and would be very careful in reading the terms and conditions when they
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have to make an agreement before downloading something via online. Also, as they are not as accustomed as their children in doing online shopping, they would be so alert and quite reluctant to provide any of their credit card‟s information. Thinking of there are millions of dangerous hidden beyond the use of technology, parents are always worry about their child will be cheated by the strangers through the online platform, since they are too young to identify what is actually good for them. Hence, with the above of concerns, parents are forced to learn more about the use of technology so that they can keep in pace as their children and less problems are derived from online network – cyber bullying or loss of money. Recommendations + counter-arguments With the purpose of bridging the gap between digital natives and digital immigrants and smoothing the problems that describe as above, it is suggested that parents take the initiative to make some changes and adapt to new things, then instill children a positive way of using technology and teach them to distinguish between right and wrong, finally in hands with teachers to motivate children in self-learning with the supplementary of technology. If each party holds a different perception over technology, differences can never be eliminated without somebody willing to step out a bit. Prensky believes in order to narrow down the gap between the intergenerational, teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style as their students (Prensky, 2001). Since it is unlikely to ask the children to go backwards and learn things that are outdated, therefore teachers can be the one to make small changes over their practices. In actual fact, with the common topics as well as accent would be easier to arouse the attention of the teens plus gain their support and respect, relationship between teacher and student can then become closer by easing the misunderstanding between the two. Getting along well with students not only help to flavor the communication that teachers can know more about the thoughts of current youngsters. What is more, take the advantage of instill children with a proper concept and idea over something, since children nowadays expose to countless lures in online network, it is very vital to help them understand the line between activities - what is healthy and which involves potential of risk. But most importantly, avoid of talking anything that will annoy them. To draw a small conclusion, having a common language and topic are very essential and will help the digital immigrants get to know more about the digital natives, with the condition of make a slightly change so that they can merge into the comfort zone of the teenagers.

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Next, facilitate learning with the support of technology. Digital immigrants used to have a prejudice over technology, they believe it is just a tool for fun and children will never use it for academic purpose. Students spend most of their time with computers and technological devices, yet rarely do revision. Even students are required to do a research project, they will only copy directly from online without digest the data they obtain. The existence of such unhealthy matter has soon alerted the teachers and Prensky proposes to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content, to increase the incentive of student for self-learning and interest over the topic (Prensky, 2001). As students are comfortable with technology and prefer game to work, thus with the transformation of the teaching materials into an interesting way as well as some questions are required to answer that offer a space for interactive may boost up the learner‟s interest greatly and willing to engage in learning. Moreover, technology (collaborative visualization tool) is able to help students to understand a complex and ambiguous topic, such as weather pattern of formation of volcano. According to the research, learners will have a longer memory over the topic if they received information with graphics and explanations by teachers instead of just reading the text, an excellent outcome is made with altering the teaching method to an interesting way: students are motivated; while worries raised from parents and teachers can also be reduced. Finally, “Practice makes perfect” encourage digital immigrants can also be as skillful as the digital natives in one day. Equip with knowledge how to deal with technology not only allow parents to keep in pace as their children, they are also able to understand more and realize what their children usually do and recognize if there is any accident happen immediately, to prevent the circumstance of turning the matter worse. Even parents become more familiar and comfortable with technology, yet they can still remain the old practice, which is an evolution from digital immigrants to digital settlers that they have the ability to handle all the tasks with confidence, and choose which practice that convenient they most, no drawbacks are resulted but more skill are learnt.1 To summarize the above, it is undoubtedly narrowing the gap between digital natives and digital immigrants can bring numerous of benefits, it is however, teachers are
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Sourgo, Y. (2012, December 17). The Digital Planet: Natives, Settlers and Immigrants. Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2012/12/70557/the-digital-planet-natives-se ttlers-and-immigrants/
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forced to make some changes to fit their students, where the results might somehow did not go well as what they expected. Owing to the style of related teacher does not match with his/her teaching method and the use of common language would only harmful to their image, hence it would better not to carry on. Secondly, transformation of the teaching materials into a more funny and interactive way incurs large costs. That teacher is required to pay greater efforts on the production of materials and preparation. Being innovation in the ideas of how to reach the objectives of motivating students‟ interest in learning would probably trouble them a lot. Therefore, high labor and production cost are involved in order to cater to the needs of students. Conclusion Last but not least, in regards of the high costs on tailoring a well-designed material to students and enhance their interest over studies are indeed unquestionably worthwhile when we look for a long-term benefit. Since teenagers are being the future pillar of the society, better education we gave; the better society we will have in the future, which is just like a cycle - heavily investment would pay off in someday. While for the teachers make a small change over the way they teach, there is always an alternative way for teachers other than just forcing themselves to learn and use while communicating with their fellow students. For example, their sincere care and hold gatherings after school can help to smoother the relationship between the two generations by triggering off the hearts of students and gradually receive more support and respect from them. What is more, teachers can thereby make use of such opportunity to give them a friendly reminder and encouragement to work harder, and most importantly, better relationship among students can help to cultivate a harmonious environment during lesson that makes the teaching more effective. It is hope that with the above of recommendations can successfully reduce the misunderstandings between the digital natives and digital immigrants by knowing more about each other‟s perception so that inspiration between two parties can be made and foster them to improve.

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References Prensky, M. (2001, September/October). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6. Retrieved December 14, 2014, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20 Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf Prensky, M. (2001, November/December). Digital natives, digital immigrants, part 2: Do they really think differently? On the Horizon, 9(6), 1-6. Retrieved December 14, 2014, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20 Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part2.pdf Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives (pp. 1-15,17-37,53-110). New York: Basic Books. VanSlyke, T. (2003). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Some Thoughts from the Generation Gap. (MAY/ JUNE 2003). Retrieved December 14, 2014, from http://depd.wisc.edu/html/TSarticles/Digital Natives.htm Sourgo, Y. (2012, December 17). The Digital Planet: Natives, Settlers and Immigrants. Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2012/12/70557/the-digital-planet-natives-se ttlers-and-immigrants/

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