| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: Are you a digital native or a digital immigrant? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Are you a digital native or a digital immigrant?".
View the poll results »
| | | | | Digital immigrant | Sep 16, 2022 |
I am a digital immigrant. I was born well before some technological marvels we take for granted today became commonplace. My grandchildren are digital natives.
P.S. The height of the irony is that the digital technology used by digital natives was created by some digital immigrants…
| | | | Liena Vijupe 
Latvia
Local time: 20:25
Member (2014)
French to Latvian
+ ...
I belong to the generation of in-betweeners (so called "Xennials"), the last ones to have an old-fashioned childhood and the first ones to adopt digital technology while still at an early age. I have no problem using it, but my attitudes and values seem more in line with those of the previous generations.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 19:25
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| Digital immigrant. | Sep 16, 2022 |
I was about 16 years old when I got my first computer lessons, I got my first desktop computer when I was 17 and the era of the internet and the mobile phone was just about to start. So although being a digital immigrant, I was just in time to kind of 'naturally' learn and use al those new technologies (compared to my old-age parents, e.g., who appear to think their smartphone is a bomb set to go off in a few minutes every single time they turn the damn thing on).
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 19:25
French to English
Answers are purely based on our age, right?
So I'm officially a digital immigrant, but way back in the 80s before even Windows existed, I was already working on producing content for computer-assisted language learning, and I had to get to grips with programming for the computer to understand what I wanted it to do.
I refused to get a mobile phone for a long time for various reasons, so it took me a while to get the hang of it once I did get one. However, my first mobile was a smart... See more Answers are purely based on our age, right?
So I'm officially a digital immigrant, but way back in the 80s before even Windows existed, I was already working on producing content for computer-assisted language learning, and I had to get to grips with programming for the computer to understand what I wanted it to do.
I refused to get a mobile phone for a long time for various reasons, so it took me a while to get the hang of it once I did get one. However, my first mobile was a smartphone so I never learned to text with the awful system on dumb mobiles. Even now, I prefer to use WhatsApp on the computer simply because typing comes so much easier for me than on the phone.
But I can certainly do everything I need to do on the phone. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 19:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
I'm generation X, so I guess I'm a digital pre-native. This does make me a digital immigrant in the new age, though.
| | | | Matthew McKay
Switzerland
Local time: 19:25
Member (2022)
Chinese to English
+ ...
| Generation "Xennial" | Sep 16, 2022 |
...or, as I saw it described somewhere once:
"Born analogue, grew up digital."
| | | | expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 18:25
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
I think I am a mix of digital native, digital immigrant, digital alien and digital integrator.
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OK, I am here, battling with a laptop and a wifi connection on a weekend away from home. At a great language festival, where I have met up with some great colleagues 
I can usually get Trados to work, but not always a smart phone.
I am not really well assimilated. I have just bought a book and a liter of milk for breakfast with hard cash, the analog way! Or it´s what I call real life!
| | | | William Hepner
United States
Local time: 13:25
Member (2022)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| More immigrant than native | Sep 16, 2022 |
I would say that, though I was born well within the era of modern desktop computers and the surge of the Internet (I was born in the 90s), most of the memories I have of my childhood are more dominated by non-digital things, like sports, outdoor activities, and the like.
With that said, I did have a GameCube and the computer was not long in making its way over. So maybe it's best to say that I'm digitally confused, or a kind of stateless digital nomad. I am, in any case, fully digi... See more I would say that, though I was born well within the era of modern desktop computers and the surge of the Internet (I was born in the 90s), most of the memories I have of my childhood are more dominated by non-digital things, like sports, outdoor activities, and the like.
With that said, I did have a GameCube and the computer was not long in making its way over. So maybe it's best to say that I'm digitally confused, or a kind of stateless digital nomad. I am, in any case, fully digital now. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Started with DOS | Sep 16, 2022 |
and then worked with all versions of Windows, starting with no. 1 (except Vista and Windows 7). I have since many years been pretty good at computer but use my smartphone only if I can't do otherwise, preferring still by far my laptop if ever possible. So I would say I'm a long term digital immigrant but not yet completely integrated.:-)
| | | | | Warning from the usage police | Sep 17, 2022 |
Who came up with these terms? Normally, an immigrant is somebody who moves to a different country, while a native is somebody who stays put. So I'm an immigrant to Greece.
But "digital immigrant" seems to work the other way around: you stay where you are (or not) and the technology gradually surrounds you.
I don't like this usage. To take a hypothetical case: if half a million people from, say, Brussels, move to another place in another country, say Pisa, outnumbering t... See more Who came up with these terms? Normally, an immigrant is somebody who moves to a different country, while a native is somebody who stays put. So I'm an immigrant to Greece.
But "digital immigrant" seems to work the other way around: you stay where you are (or not) and the technology gradually surrounds you.
I don't like this usage. To take a hypothetical case: if half a million people from, say, Brussels, move to another place in another country, say Pisa, outnumbering the natives, does that mean that the original inhabitants of Pisa have now become immigrants? I would say obviously not.
I vote we reject these terms as imprecise and inappropriate.
As regards my own response to the digital revolution, I've made use of the bits that are useful to me and largely ignored the rest. ▲ Collapse
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| digital - immigrant | Sep 17, 2022 |
a) the counting
The Indians had hands and a palm at the end, 4 fingers and a fifth thumb.
Fingers used to count to 4. The Slavs still have it that way today. For example, Czech "cat (kočka) counting".
1 kočka (-a, feminine gender)
2 kočky (-y)
3 kočky (-y)
4 kočky (-y)
When cats are 5, the fifth thumb changes the ending to 5 koček (-ek).
English has maintained this distinction for ordinal numerals from digit 4 (-t... See more a) the counting
The Indians had hands and a palm at the end, 4 fingers and a fifth thumb.
Fingers used to count to 4. The Slavs still have it that way today. For example, Czech "cat (kočka) counting".
1 kočka (-a, feminine gender)
2 kočky (-y)
3 kočky (-y)
4 kočky (-y)
When cats are 5, the fifth thumb changes the ending to 5 koček (-ek).
English has maintained this distinction for ordinal numerals from digit 4 (-th):
first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth.
b) digital examination = finger examination (palpation)
digital rectal examination of the prostate (I have not yet undergone)
c) non-migrant: Some people live in the same house (or town) for 90 years and still live in the 4th state.
Milan ▲ Collapse
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 19:25
Spanish to English
+ ...
I agree with Philip.
Wikipedia dixit. "The term digital native is a highly contested concept, being considered by many education researchers as a persistent myth not founded on empirical evidence"
In common parlance, I'm from the generation known as "boomers", and we are supposed to be doddery old gits well past their sell by date. I suppose I'm what you could call an early adopter, as I got into computers at user level in the early 90s.
[Edited at 2022-0... See more I agree with Philip.
Wikipedia dixit. "The term digital native is a highly contested concept, being considered by many education researchers as a persistent myth not founded on empirical evidence"
In common parlance, I'm from the generation known as "boomers", and we are supposed to be doddery old gits well past their sell by date. I suppose I'm what you could call an early adopter, as I got into computers at user level in the early 90s.
[Edited at 2022-09-17 08:08 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| Digital immigrant | Sep 17, 2022 |
I’m not a boomer, but I spent my younger days as if I was in the 1950s. Our parents were rather old school, you see. My brother and I had the privilege of being scolded by our mom to clean up the mess and put our toys back in the box. Sometimes, I made our own toys. I remember there was this time when I created DIY rifles out of pipes, balloons, and a bunch of rubber bands, with wet paper balls for the bullets. These were just a glorified slingshot, but still…
We were a poor family, so we didn’t have the budget for snazzy tech trinkets. Those were more of luxury novelties preserved for the rich, and we had no practical use for them anyway. The only piece of tech we had was a tube analog TV.
In 1999, my cousins bought a Sony PlayStation, and they let us play with them. My reaction to this exposure was, “Wow, this is so cool!” I soon found myself slowly migrating from physical toys to video games. And I’m still a gamer to this date.
Fast-forward to a few years after the millennium, we finally bought a home PC. My family somehow appointed me as the IT department of our household. I understood nothing about computers back then. Sure, I took a computer course. But it was a long time ago, and only limited to turning the PC on and off, launching and operating some programs, saving files to the floppy disks, all that basic stuff. They never taught me anything about sysadmin wizardry.
And there I was, tearing my hair out wondering why the heck Windows eXPloded on my face. We didn’t have the internet. So every time this happened, I had to go to a cybercafé with a list of PC problems a̶n̶d̶ ̶p̶o̶r̶n̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶k̶s̶. Things went so much easier for me after we decided to have an internet subscription.
Now, in less than 24 hours, I will be installing Gentoo for the very first time. If I didn’t make it, please tell my chicken burritos I love them. 
[Edited at 2022-09-17 11:34 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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