Digital Immigrant vs. Digital Native --Kerry

Apparently I am a "digital immigrant" according to the technology speaker at my husband's recent law seminar in Bend.

"Cool, I'm for immigration. Let's relax those borders and let 'em in," I think to myself.

And that's exactly what digital immigrants do. They had to learn how to use technology, like I learned how to use my first Macintosh at the student union computer lab in 1987. Instantly taken with the handy little box I immediately sloughed off my borrowed typewriter in the third floor of the sorority and spent all my free writing time immigrating from the paper to the screen. For someone who always loses pens and can't find a decent sheet of paper to write on, the computer screen and the equally as exciting accompanying printer was nirvana encased in plastic with a cute half-bitten apple.

My niece, however, is a digital native. Born in, gasp, 1989, she texts at the family Christmas dinner table while she's carrying on a full conversation about her chemistry class at the University of Washington. She took one of the first digital pictures of my children ever on her phone and emailed it to me. I stand in awe of her innate technology trait; it's as though she inherited a gene that enables her to have entire cell phone conversations while at the same time dexterously checking her my space page and vacuuming. The only similar metaphor I have for myself at that age might be the same way as I talked on the dormitory payphone and doodled on my foot. Not quite the same technological panache.

But I did drive a BMW, even though it was accidentally painted bright pink by a color-blind body shop worker. That counts for something flashy, doesn't it? Never mind that the sunroof leaked and various parts flew off it at inconvenient moments. That was the closest mechanical thing that I came to love until my laptop.

I have immigrated, the car is gone, but the ride continues....