Digital natives?: New and old media and children's language acquisition

Abstract

Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) presents a rare research opportunity. Not only does the study allow us to see how children's language develops as they grow, but it also provides information specific to the generation of children known as 'digital natives'. The children in the study are 'native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet'; in contrast to their parents, who are 'digital immigrants', having largely grown up in a world without personal computers or the Internet (Prensky, 2001). There are differing opinions about the nature of 'new media'. Proponents of the 'digital natives thesis' posit a radical discontinuity between the modern environment shaped by digital media and the past environment shaped by older media. Other historians of technology emphasise the continuities between older media platforms and the new media that challenge and, sometimes, eventually, completely displace them (Silverstone, 1999; Livingstone, 2002; Silverstone, 1999).