The myths of the digital native and the multitasker

doi:10.1016/j.tate.2017.06.001

Teaching and Teacher Education

Volume 67, October 2017, Pages 135-142

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.06.001 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Information-savvy digital natives do not exist.
•
Learners cannot multitask; they task switch which negatively impacts learning.
•
Educational design assuming these myths hinders rather than helps learning.

Abstract

Current discussions about educational policy and practice are often embedded in a mind-set that considers students who were born in an age of omnipresent digital media to be fundamentally different from previous generations of students. These students have been labelled digital natives and have been ascribed the ability to cognitively process multiple sources of information simultaneously (i.e., they can multitask). As a result of this thinking, they are seen by teachers, educational administrators, politicians/policy makers, and the media to require an educational approach radically different from that of previous generations. This article presents scientific evidence showing that there is no such thing as a digital native who is information-skilled simply because (s)he has never known a world that was not digital. It then proceeds to present evidence that one of the alleged abilities of students in this generation, the ability to multitask, does not exist and that designing education that assumes the presence of this ability hinders rather than helps learning. The article concludes by elaborating on possible implications of this for education/educational policy.

Section snippets

Digital natives

In discussions of educational innovation, especially those discussions relating to either implementing specific information and communication technologies, the need for more effective pedagogies, or experienced problems with motivation, the term digital native (Prensky, 2001, Prensky, 2006) is inevitably thrown into the arena. Take, for example, Teräs, Myllylä, and Teräs (2011) who state that there is “a gap between higher education and 21st century skills. Although these are the natural skills

A non-solution for a non-existing problem?

Based on Prensky's original concept, one could argue that (1) teachers of these digital natives are digital immigrants who, through their lack of digital knowledge and skills, impede the natives' learning, and (2) when and if digital natives themselves become teachers, this problem can and will be solved. Valtonen et al. (2011), studied Net Generation student teachers (i.e., student teachers born between 1984 and 1989) in Finland. The results revealed, “that the technological knowledge of

What does this mean for teachers and teacher training?

There are a number of consequences of this non-existence of Digital Natives for both teachers and teacher training. A first element is that it will help teachers avoid the pitfall of assuming that their students possess talents and abilities that they do not actually have. The skills and competences attributed to this generation of students are the same as any other skills and competences, namely that they need to be properly taught and acquired before they can be applied.

A second element is

Multitasking

Closely related to the myth of the digital native is the pervasive myth that people can multitask. The digital native myth deals primarily with the naturally occurring (i.e., not learned) acquisition by a generation of children of the metacognitive skills necessary for a multitude of learning strategies (Veen & Vrakking, 2006). In comparison, the myth of human multitasking deals with the presumed capabilities of the human cognitive architecture and information processing by them. This second

Deleterious effects of multitasking

Kirschner & Karpinski (2010), however, found that high-intensity users of social media (in their study Author et al. studied Facebook^® use) studied just as long as low-intensity users. In other words, high-intensity Facebook-users did not make the extra time investment needed to master the content. What was then found was that the grade point averages (GPAs) of the high-intensity users were also significantly lower. This was especially the case for U.S. students who did this ‘disruptively’;

What does this mean for teachers and teacher training?

Apart from the elements discussed as a consequence of the non-existence of digital natives, the negative effects of multitasking add several elements to consider.

First, there is a need to teach pupils, students, and teachers about the importance of focus and the negative effects of multitasking on learning as discussed. This is not only important for the study methods pupils, students, and teacher trainees themselves use, but also important for what teachers do in the classroom. For example,

Conclusion

As has been shown, there is quite a large body of evidence showing that the digital native does not exist nor that people, regardless of their age, can multitask. This corpus of research also shows that though learners in this generation have only experienced a digital connected world, they are not capable of dealing with modern technologies in the way which is often ascribed to them (i.e., that they can navigate that world for effective and efficient learning and knowledge construction).

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge the work done by the first author with Prof. dr. Jeroen J.G. van Merriënboer on the article Do learners really know best? Urban legends in education, published in 2013 in Educational Psychologist parts of which formed the basis for this article.

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View full text

The myths of the digital native and the multitasker

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

Digital natives

A non-solution for a non-existing problem?

What does this mean for teachers and teacher training?

Multitasking

Deleterious effects of multitasking

What does this mean for teachers and teacher training?

Conclusion

Acknowledgement

Neuron

Computers in Human Behavior

Computers & Education

Computers in Human Behavior

International Journal of Medical Informatics

Computers and Education

Computers in Human Behavior

Computers & Education

Computers in Human Behavior

Multitasking: Switching costs - subtle “switching” costs cut efficiency, raise risk

Teaching and learning with the net generation

Innovate: Journal of Online Education

Exploring human multitasking strategies from a cognitive constraint approach

Focus on driving: How cognitive constraints shape the adaptation of strategy when dialing while driving

The shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains

Gaming in technology education: The study of gaming can teach life skills for the twenty-first century that employers want... These include analytical thinking, team building, multitasking, and problem solving under duress

The Technology Teacher

E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning

Communication loads on clinical staff in the emergency department

The Medical Journal of Australia

Bottom up technology transmission within families: Exploring how youths influence their parents' digital media use with dyadic data

Journal of Communication

Urban myths about learning and education

Bouwstenen voor high impact learning

Has the Net-Generation arrived at the university? - oder der Student von Heute, ein Digital Native? [or Contemporary student – a Digital Native?]

Distractions, distractions: Does instant messaging affect college students' performance on a concurrent reading comprehension task?

CyberPsychology & Behavior

The app generation: How today's youth navigate identity, intimacy, and imagination in a digital world

Division of attention: The single-channel hypothesis revisited

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Section A, Human Experimental Psychology

Digital na(t)ives? Variation in internet skills and uses among members of the ‘‘net generation’’

Sociological Inquiry

Digital inequality differences in young adults' use of the internet

Communication Research

Executive control deficits as a prodrome to falls in healthy older adults: A prospective study linking thinking, walking, and falling

The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences

Living and learning with new media

A cognitively bounded rational analysis model of dual-task performance trade-offs

The net generation and digital natives: Implications for higher education

The net generation are not big users of Web 2.0 technologies: Preliminary findings

Digital natives?: an Asian perspective for using learning technologies

International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology

Do we need teachers as designers of technology enhanced learning?

Instructional Science