In a discussion the other day someone put forward the statement along the lines that the so-called “digital natives” – the current generation of teenagers using the Facebooks of the world – will reject email and will “bring better ways of communicating once they enter the workforce.”
They won’t. Email is the original killer app and will reign for another ten years as the best way to engage in a meaningful asynchronous conversation, or as a means of asynchronous communication. They’ll use it just fine to their own advantage as part of the digital communication toolset available to all of us today. And those younger ones will be much more critical of the slowness and futility of having to open a web page on the go when a text-only message will do.
I don’t buy this whole “Native” vs. “Immigrant” debate. As a civilization, our body of knowledge and understanding of the world is ever expanding, and every new generation knows more than the previous. Not much of a revolutionary revelation there. Besides, we’re all immigrants into the digital world – there’s still only wetware between our ears – hard to claim our native language is binary.
Finally, going back to the source, much cited Marc Prensky’s original paper from 2001, here’s what he had to say:
There are hundreds of examples of the digital immigrant accent. They include printing out your email (or having your secretary print it out for you – an even “thicker” accent); needing to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it (rather than just editing on the screen); and bringing people physically into your office to see a interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL). I‟m sure you can think of one or two examples of your own without much effort. My own favorite example is the “Did you get my email?” phone call.
Doesn’t sound as if he even thought of those “natives” rejecting email, no?
Here’s one of my favorite questions when it comes to the “email is obsolete” debate: what’s the fastest growing consumer service in mobile telecom these days, predominantly fueled by the young?
