Cygnet posted recently about the idea that people can be divided into Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. The obvious analogy is to language (and perhaps culture) acquisition; the idea that children are wired to learn, and we lose that knack as we age - not completely, but it's never quite the same.

I think this makes a lot of sense; it's not such a leap from the structures of language to the structures of computing - it's got a vocabulary, a set of metaphors and idioms, a way of conceiving of the world. But I think there's something else that explains the difference - it's attitudinal. "[Digital Natives] prefer games to 'serious' work." I think Prensky would suggest that this is an effect of being a Digital Native; I think it's a cause! The big difference in the way children learn to use technology - certainly the way I did - and the way adults do, is that it's a game for children. Adults who are learning to use a computer are, for the most part, doing it with a purpose in mind. "My boss wants me to make a spreadsheet. I want to send pictures of my kids to their grandparents. I keep losing my todo list."

Kids, on the other hand, are playing a game a lot of the time. Not literally a *game* (although, hey, time on the computer is time on the computer); but they're having fun. My little brother got to middle school already knowing how to do slideshows because he'd wanted to make something flashy. I learned how to use Word because ... actually, I don't recall. But since I did this at the age of 5 before Mom and Dad were out of bed, and I took great pride in "making the words green", I'm guessing the journey counted for more than the destination. Compare, for instance, older geeks - who are Digital Natives, but didn't necessarily grow up with computers - with the Digital Immigrants of their generation.

What's the critical difference? Time pressures might have something to do with it; the more time you spend plugged in, the more comfortable you'll feel there. But I think more important is the freedom that not having a critical goal or deadline gives you - you can screw things up, or try more than one method. And by the time you get to the age where you do have those specific, time-sensitive goals, you're already familiar with how the system works.

And for the record, it's not true that Digital Natives prefer graphics to text. Long live vi!