Prensky (2001)’s ¨Digital Native/Digital Immigrant¨ Concept Revisited: Are We Trapped in a Metaphor?
By Paula Gabriela Ferrari - Academic Summary - Prensky (2001)’s ¨Digital Native/Digital Immigrant¨ Concept Revisited: Are We Trapped in a Metaphor? In his critique entitled ¨ Review of Deconstructing Digital Natives ¨, Mark E. Nelson carefully examines the book ¨ Deconstructing Digital Natives ¨ and provides his own reflections on this controversial topic. Because the book itself centers on Marc Prensky’s metaphoric distinction between digital native/digital immigrant , Nelson begins by quoting Prensky’s words to define these concepts. According to Prensky (2001), digital natives are the people who have been daily interacting with digital technology since they were born. As opposed to this notion, the term digital immigrants makes reference to those people who have incorporated digital technology later in their lives. Nelson points out that the digital native metaphor (and its corollary, digital immigrant ) has triggere...