The first-principle of technology, the Net Gen discourse, both are technologically determinist theories (i.e. ideas). Where technology leads, people must follow. Thus, the diffusion of digital technology and Web 2.0 tools has created, all by itself and unconditionally, a homogenous race of superbeings. However, the brave new world anticpated by Prensky et al. has not come to pass, as Bennett et al. describe. Prensky didn't hold back to check out the long-term outcomes. There is no hideous production line of technologically enhanced superyouth; rather, 'young people's [technology] use and skills are not uniform' (Bennet et al., 2008, p. 783).
So there is little empirical basis for the Net Gen discourse. In fact, you could say that Prensky et al. have misunderstood the social-constructionist nature of the Web 2.0 world. For the world their folk devils are said to inhabit is, in fact, a highly socialised world, a user-mediated environment in which resources are co-produced and freely shared, where standards and values are negotiated (but not enforced) by communities, and where networks are nothing if not social. Prensky et al., it seems, are not so much 'last season' as 'last century', with their post-war interpretation of the machine age, à la Aldous Huxley. No, in the digital devils' world, where technology leads, the people must and will decide!
On technological determinism
The first-principle of technology, the Net Gen discourse, both are technologically determinist theories (i.e. ideas). Where technology leads, people must follow. Thus, the diffusion of digital technology and Web 2.0 tools has created, all by itself and unconditionally, a homogenous race of superbeings. However, the brave new world anticpated by Prensky et al. has not come to pass, as Bennett et al. describe. Prensky didn't hold back to check out the long-term outcomes. There is no hideous production line of technologically enhanced superyouth; rather, 'young people's [technology] use and skills are not uniform' (Bennet et al., 2008, p. 783).
So there is little empirical basis for the Net Gen discourse. In fact, you could say that Prensky et al. have misunderstood the social-constructionist nature of the Web 2.0 world. For the world their folk devils are said to inhabit is, in fact, a highly socialised world, a user-mediated environment in which resources are co-produced and freely shared, where standards and values are negotiated (but not enforced) by communities, and where networks are nothing if not social. Prensky et al., it seems, are not so much 'last season' as 'last century', with their post-war interpretation of the machine age, à la Aldous Huxley. No, in the digital devils' world, where technology leads, the people must and will decide!