Summary&Response - Essay Example

Summary and response: Born digital Summary Palfrey John and Gasser Urs ed the article, ‘born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives.’ The authors reports on the technology change across generations with focus on the difference between the current generation and the older generation. The authors identify three categories of people, the digital natives, digital immigrants, and digital settlers, and effects of contemporary state of technology on each group. Ooverreliance on technology, according to the authors, is a major and common trait of the digital natives, the young generation that is born after the year 1980 and grew with the contemporary technology.

They spend a lot of time with technology and own gadgets such as iPod and other mobile devices and do most of their activities online. The authors further note that difference between the three categories offers advantages and conflicts. The digital natives have some techniques that captivate the older generation such as creativity in technology but also lack some fundamental aspects such as interpersonal skills. Technology also induces bad traits among the digital natives. Digital settlers are however in a better position to handle the digital natives who rely on online technology for their interpersonal interactions.

Even though the digital natives depict different lifestyles from digital immigrants, some of the fundamentals are retained. Shared online music with playlist, for expressing affection, has for example substituted music cassettes with track lists. Acknowledging development that the digital natives have caused and potential improvements, the author notes that the technology use among digital natives must be handled with care because actions on it may either propel or destroy the society. Response The authors offer a rich description of the digital natives, their distinguishing characteristics from the digital immigrants and settlers, and effects on contemporary technology on the digital natives.

This means existence of a gap between segments of the population with respect to use of technology. I agree with the authors position on these themes. First, experience with the digital natives exposes their extreme reliance on technology as they spend a lot of time on related devices. Interaction with them in public places and even in family even illustrates this as they are oftem immerced in the computerized devices, either chating with friends, updating status, or downloading online content.

My personal experience in family occasions confirm this as family members, from the digital generation, can not spend time without resorting to their social network and other technology applications such as photography from their mobile and computerized devices. Experiences at workplaces also support the authors position because organization are shifting to technology applications and they rely on the digital natives to develop and manage the applications. The authors’ position on diversified effects of technology on the digital generation is also accurate because it corresponds to literature from independent empirical studies.

Hauptmann and Steger (2013) explains the role of social media in organizations and this is consistent with the authors’ position of benefits of the technology application by the digital generation. In addition, creativity among the digital natives plays a significant role of different aspect of organizations’ management. Team building and community development are examples. excessive application of technology such as in social networks blurs the gap between social life and other activities such as professional work and academics and this supports the notion of adverse effects of technology on the digital natives as Palfrey and Urs explains.

Even though Brown and Czerniewicz (2010) undermines the notion of digital natives and calls for a redefinition, their points of a clear line between those who use technology and those who cannot use technology corresponds with the definition of digital natives, digital settlers, and digital immigrants, based on ability to use technology. References Palfrey, J. and Gasser U. born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives. Born Digital. Retrieved from: http://www.borndigitalbook.

com/excerpt.php. Hauptmann, S. and Steger, T. (2013). “A brave new (digital) world”? Eeffects of in-house social media on HRM. Zeitschrift fur Personalforschung 27(1), 26-46. Brown, C. and Czerniewicz, L. (2010). Debunking the digital native: