“Getting Back in Touch” via Facebook – Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

February 19, 2009 - 6:40 PM by Brian Blum · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Immigrant Moments, Life, Pop Culture, Technology

Lately, my wife Jody and I have spent a lot of time getting in touch with old friends via Facebook. It started when I received a friend request from Larry. Larry and I were best buddies growing up. But after I moved away, we fell out of touch. I’ve looked for him from time to time via Google but never found any contact information. It had been 20 years since I last spoke with him. But through the wonder of social networking, we’re back in contact.

Larry connected me to another high school friend who connected me to a college colleague. It’s been a blast.

And it got Jody and I thinking: What if there had been a Facebook when we were teenagers some 30+ years ago. The whole concept of “getting back in touch” with old friends as we are doing now simply wouldn’t exist. We’d be connected from the start and would stay that way (unless we were “unfriended” for some unforgivable offense).

As we shared status updates, we’d always know what achievements the high school jock had attained, or what type of relationship an old flame was in (undoubtedly “it’s complicated”).

That’s the difference between us old fogeys and the “digital natives” – a term from the book Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey, director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society – to describe young people born after 1980 for whom the Internet was already a given by the time they hit surfing age.

Lev Grossman at Time Magazine wrote a funny piece this week that echoes what I’m saying. He lists a number of reasons why social networking tools such as Facebook are even better for “digital immigrants,” as Palfrey refers to us, who didn’t grow up with social networking. Among his conclusions:

1. We’re no longer bitter about high school. Digital natives may be “hung up on any number of petty slights,” Grossman says, but when a person who insulted us way back when asks to friend us today, we say sure. Because we’re bigger than that now.

2. Facebook isn’t just a social network; it’s a business network. Sure, LinkedIn may “officially” be the professional social media tool, but it’s Facebook, with its 175 million users (and counting), where we make most of our work connections.

3. Facebook lets you share pictures of your children. Digital natives may be snapping shots of friends at school or the beach, but we’re just kvelling by posting albums of our grand kids.

4. Facebook means you don’t have to remember e-mail addresses. Just log on and search. You never have to leave the walled garden.

5. We’re more careful about our privacy. You won’t see us posting half-clothed drunken pictures of ourselves at a fraternity party that may lead to a potential employer, looking to vett a job candidate via Google, to disqualify us without even getting to the interview.

Indeed, the relationship to privacy is probably the biggest difference between digital immigrants and natives, the latter of whom have no problem living their lives entirely in public.

For example, my teenager daughter last night bemoaned the fact that her grandparents asked about her new boyfriend. “That’s my private business,” she wailed. “They have no right going there.”

“But you posted it all in your status for everyone to see!” I countered. She stormed out of the room.

Now, in a controversial move that had the blogosphere up in arms this week, Facebook tried to quietly change its Terms of Service to so that if a member quits the site, his or her content will no longer be deleted.

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