One of the themes of Born Digital, the book Urs Gasser and I are working on, is excitement around the possibility of an emerging global culture of young people who use technology in particular ways. (We’re equally interested in the problems of those who may be left out of that emerging culture, too, as Ethan Zuckerman and Eszter Hargittai and others are quick to remind us.) It was fun, in this context, to see a few international responses to / reverberations of our post about definitions and subtleties around who is a “digital native” and who is not: one from Canada’s paper of record, the Globe and Mail; a few in Spanish; and a few in German; in Italian; and from our friend and colleague Shenja on the Media@LSE (London School of Economics) blog.

(Since this is a joint research project with our colleagues at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, I suppose it’s not really surprising — the conversation actually started internationally.)

– John P.

See the cross-posting on John Palfrey’s blog here.

The Digital Natives group blog goes live! Watch this space for posts by the project’s principle investigators, fellows, research assistants, and interns. We welcome all comments by all – native to alien, young to old(er).

Wish to continue the conversation further? Dive in and make an edit or two on our wiki.

While we celebrate the birth of our group blog, thinking on Digital Natives goes way back! Take a look at some Digital Natives @ Berkman history – view past posts by principal investigators John Palfrey and Urs Gasser.

-Miriam S.