Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants: Towards a Model of Digital Fluency

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 a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Business & information systems engineering 2013-12, Vol.5 (6), p.409-419
Main Authors: Wang, Qian (Emily), Myers, Michael D., Sundaram, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business
Business and Management
CAI
Citation management software
Computer assisted instruction
Continuums
Demographics
Dichotomies
Digital
Digital literacy
Immigrants
Information systems
Information technology
IT in Business
Mathematical models
Millennials
Noncitizens
Operations management
Product acceptance
Search engines
State of the Art
Studies
Systems engineering
Technology Acceptance Model
Technology adoption
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1867-0202
2363-7005
1867-0202
DOI:10.1007/s12599-013-0296-y