'Digital Natives'..and us?

The dense, 'full-on' nature of Summer School and its very first lecture have already provided me with a very fascinating concept that I think is worth a meditation. I personally want to address my interest towards Marc Prensky's concept, 'Digital Natives.'- referring to the generation of students who have lived their entire lives surrounded by 'digital technology- and in contrast to them we have 'Digital immigrants.'

I think that the rapid changes being occurred in technological development in contemporary society narrows down the 'communal space' for the 'immigrants' to be engaged with the digitizing society -which inevitably and spontaneously created emergence of metaphysical communal spaces (such as online meetings of people through games, forums etc). I worry that it would be harder for the 'Digital Immigrants' to catch up and adopt themselves to new, superfluous flux of technologies and spontaneously the barrier between the 'Natives' and the 'Immigrants' would be thickened- a 'digital polarization' that may have prodigious impact in the near-future society in portraying the 'Immigrants' as extraneous beings.

In terms of video games as example, people born in the late 80's who would have been surrounded by consoles such as Playstation 1, Sega Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn- nostalgic but also extremely pathetic in today's standards- may have difficulties in adopting the high quality, sophisticated and complex elements of today's consoles and its games- In this sense those who were cognitively acknowledged as 'Natives' would not be 'Natives' anymore in today's standards and on the other hand this apprises that the 'PERMANENT NATIVES' cannot exist. Even myself (I am born in the mid-80s, and perhaps am a 'pre-Native') find difficulties in playing some of the recent games because there are so many functions/manipulation that the newer games offer in order for the users to 'PLAY!'- I often feel that I am being dragged away from the new digital world!

'Digital Native' as a term has a diminishing periodic nature- Everyone eventually becomes 'Digital immigrants' and such transition from 'Native' to an 'Immigrant' can happen in an INSTANT- even tomorrow or even now- I am sure there are great number of people who are wandering amid the boundaries of 'Natives' and 'Immigrants.' -seeking for their own identity. Then, who are these nomads? and how can we define/justify them?

-James, Yoo-Joon, HAN :-P