Marketers and social theorists love to talk about digital natives. This group is supposedly a generation of early adopters under the age of about 35, uniquely adept at technology compared to their older counterparts. But according to a recent editorial in Nature, these digital natives are a figment of our collective imagination—about as easy to find as a “a yeti with a smartphone.“ 
 
 The editorial points to a review paper published this June in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education, which concluded that “information-savvy digital natives do not exist.” Despite assertions that younger generations learn differently and require specialized, multimedia teaching strategies because they grew up with smartphones and the web, the authors say that there is no evidence to suggest that digital natives are more tech-savvy or good at multi-tasking than older generations. 
 
 This idea of the digital native was born out of the a 2001 essay by educator Marc Prensky, who claimed that a new generation was especially skilled at processing multiple streams of information and using technology, reports Discover Magazine. Prensky argued the world should adapt its teaching methods accordingly. But Paul Kirschner, co-author of the Teaching and Teacher Education study and a professor of educational psychology at the Open University in the Netherlands, argues that we hurt, rather than help, students learn when we assume that they have unique technological skills. ”We have to treat people as human, cognitive learners and stop considering one specific group to have special powers,” Kirschner tells Discover. 
 
 This idea is backed up by other research showing that millennials do not necessarily possess special skills at basic computer programs compared to older generations. Research has also shown that multitasking is neither a special domain of the young nor an effective way to get good results for virtually anyone. 
 
 If the idea of “digital natives” was just jargon that advertisers used to sell to the under-30 crowd, all this might not matter much. But the idea that digital native are fundamentally different is influencing everything from the way curriculums are designed to the way companies shape their corporate work environments. 
 
 A better approach might be to rethink how we define generations. Digital natives have not developed unique intellectual abilities from their proximity to technology because basic human cognition doesn’t change from generation to generation. But Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, argues that categorizing people into distinct generations can be useful for certain things. She points out that millennials show significant differences from older peers in terms of their workplace preferences, life goals, religious participation, alcohol and drug use, and trust in institutions. In other words, generations may have different habits and world views—but the way people learn won’t change so quickly. ||||| Thomas Trutschel/Photothek/Getty 
 
 Some people put the cut-off at 1984, but for most it is 1980. People born after that date are the digital natives; those born before are digital immigrants, doomed to be forever strangers in a computer-based strange land. 
 
 The generational difference between the groups goes beyond their numbers of Facebook friends and Twitter followers: it can also help to explain differences in how they buy insurance. At least, that’s according to a report released this week for the insurance industry. Targeting Millennials with Insurance explains that young people aren’t like those who came before and queued passively for cover. They “prioritize holidays”, for one, which might surprise some of them. Because they are digital natives, they “will favor technologically innovative insurance policies”. 
 
 But a paper published last month in Teaching and Teacher Education reaches the opposite conclusion. The digital native is a myth, it claims: a yeti with a smartphone (P. A. Kirschner and P. D. Bruyckere Teach. Teach. Educ. 67, 135–142; 2017). The implications go beyond insurance. Many schools and universities are retooling to cope with kids and young adults who are supposedly different. From collaborative learning in the classroom to the provision of e-learning modules in undergraduate courses, the rise of the digital native is being used as a reason — some say a justification — for significant policy changes. 
 
 Education policy is particularly vulnerable to political whims, fads and untested assumptions. From swapping evolution for creationism to the idea that multiple types of intelligence demand multiple approaches, generations of children are schooled according to dogma, not evidence. Surveys show, for example, that teachers and education experts subscribe to dozens of different and opposing ‘learning styles’. Under these, children can be categorized as activists or theorists, organizers or innovators, non-committers or plungers, globalists or analysts, deep or surface learners, and so on. Could the latest example be altering access to, and the provision of, technology in the classroom, simply because a new cohort is believed to be more familiar with it? 
 
 It is beyond dispute that people brought up in the most recent decades have been exposed to a lot of digital technology — at least in developed countries. And paper co-author Paul Kirschner, an education researcher at the Open University of the Netherlands in Heerlen, happily describes himself in his academic work as a “windmill-fighter”. But whereas Don Quixote aimed against solid walls, the digital-native assumption, on closer inspection, does seem illusory. It is certainly no giant. 
 
 A 2011 review for the Higher Education Academy in York, UK, put it bluntly, as the first of its executive-summary conclusions: “There is no evidence that there is a single new generation of young students entering Higher Education and the terms Net Generation and Digital Native do not capture the processes of change that are taking place”. Many members of the digital-savvy generation use technology in the same way as many of their elders: to passively soak up information. Children say they prefer IT in their lessons and courses? Do schools listen when kids say they prefer chips for lunch every day? 
 
 The Teaching and Teacher Education paper raises another concern. Digital natives are assumed to be able to multitask, it warns. But the evidence for this is also scant. Reading text messages during university lectures almost certainly comes at a cognitive cost. So too, employers might assume, does fiddling with smartphones and laptops in meetings. Buy that technologically innovative insurance policy another time. ||||| Digital Natives 
 
 Marc coined the terms “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants” in an essay in 2001, bringing together under this umbrella concepts that had been floating around the idea world in various guises. (See this updated 2006 blog post by Marc on the origins of the terms.) 
 
 The terms “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants” have since circled the globe, being used by Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch among millions of others. Books have been published by others on the subject (e.g. “Deconstructing Digital Natives”) and Harvard Univerity initiated a “Digital Natives Project”. 
 
 The terms also brought their share of controversy, which Marc found surprising— given that this was, for him, only a metaphor to help people understand why and how things in their world were changing. Marc believes that much of the controversy was due to a mis-interpretation of the term Digital Native by some people to mean that “everyone born after a certain date knows everything about technology.” That, of course, is patently false. 
 
 Today Marc has largely moved on from using this metaphor, and now focuses on all people finding “Digital Wisdom” together. For those who care, Marc’s current view of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants is this: 
 
 The Digital Natives / Digital Immigrants metaphor is NOT about what people know, or can do, with technology. Everyone has to learn in one way or another. It’s more about culture and attitudes. Digital Immigrants lived in two cultures: the pre-digital and the digital. Digital Natives have known only the digital culture. A great many of the Digital Immigrants’ deeply-felt attitudes and preferences were formed in, and reflect, the pre-digital culture and age. The Digital Natives / Digital Immigrants metaphor is basically a shorthand way of expressing that many of the attitudes formed by those who grew up in the old, pre-digital culture clash with those of the Natives, whose attitudes were formed in the new, digital culture — this is independent of what each may “know” about how digital technology works. Problems too often stem from people making judgments that reflect their own formative cultures, and thinking of those judgments as culture-independent or absolute. Immigrants have to watch out for thinking the way they learned to do things is still the best way. Natives need to realize that they still have to learn many things about technology — and life. That is why it is important that we all learn to work together, with mutual respect, to find Digital Wisdom. 
 
 (See also Controversy)
– Are you a "digital native" or a "digital immigrant," and does it make a difference? Research recently published in the Teaching and Teacher Education journal indicates the concept of so-called digital natives—aka, those slotted into the "millennials" category and younger, and often thought to be masters of technology and multitasking—is a myth, reports Discover magazine. Why it's important for this myth to be shattered, scientists say, is because companies and educators have been urged to revamp their processes and environments to cater to the supposedly more tech-savvy younger generation, Quartz notes. "The answer is not how we can adapt [to the younger generation]," says lead author Paul Kirschner, an Open University educational psychology professor. "We have to treat people as human, cognitive learners and stop considering one specific group to have special powers." Previous studies have suggested digital immigrants—those born before the early '80s and, as Nature puts it, thought to be "doomed to be forever strangers in a computer-based strange land"—can handle technological tasks as well as the younger set. In fact, every generation has trouble multitasking (think emailing and watching TV at the same time) because our brains just aren't equipped to fully concentrate on multiple tasks at once. Even Marc Prensky, the educator who first popularized the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrants" in a 2001 essay, is now moving away from those labels and embracing the term "digital wisdom," which he says we can all aspire to. "The Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants metaphor is NOT about what people know, or can do, with technology," his site notes. "It's more about culture and attitudes." (Not taking anything away from this 4-year-old, though.)