Getting more out of the internet

Technology has become a major part of our daily activities and it seems to be taking over our lives. The Internet has become a compendium of opinions that signals unity. It also serves as a global meeting place for people from all over the world and eliminates national and geographic boundaries. The Internet sometimes serves a networking function in linking together people of a like mind. Similarly, the Internet allows for activism such as through email newsletters, provocative blog entries, and other forms of self-expression.
The Internet can symbolize a universal mind: the confluence of ideas and the absence of artificial boundaries like nation or language. According to an article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” by Marc Prensky, “Today’s students K through college represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other tools of the digital age. Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV).” Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. In the article by Prensky, he talks about how “digital natives”; those grew up with digital technology, think differently from “digital immigrants”; those who did not grow up with digital technology. Research has shown that adolescents do not have fully developed executive functions. “Digital natives” are mostly all adolescents since technologies like the internet and cell phones have only been available to large numbers of people for 15 years or so. That means they have been exposed to digital technologies before their executive functions have fully developed. Some believe that the next generations is going to be the most high-maintenance work force in the history of the world, but also the highest-performing, They'll be the highest-performing, partly because of their skilled use of technologies that didn't exist when baby boomers and Gen Xers grew up, such as Smartphone’s and Internet search engines. It would be interesting to see if multi-tasking behavior is a function of development at the time of exposure to technology more than just growing up with technology.

Prensky, Marc “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol.1. Retrieved August 18, 2010
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf