I sometimes bristle at the digital native\/digital immigrant divide. \u00a0I feel like I can stand toe-to-toe with any 20-something, and I do every semester when I teach undergraduates. \u00a0They know what they know about Facebook and email but are surprised by much of what I show them. \u00a0They even look at me apologetically when they get out their analog agendas and spiral notebooks.<\/p>\n
But when the conversation turns to gaming, at least on a game console, I feel like a digital immigrant. \u00a0I have never spent hours playing video games on a game console like a Nintendo. The closest I’ve ever gotten to a console game is the Wii that I’ve had for a few years, and, in my middle school\/high school days, an early Atari. \u00a0In between…not so much. \u00a0In college, we played arcade games at the laundromat. \u00a0After college, I was too poor to buy a game console, and since I didn’t have kids, I never had an easy excuse to buy one later. I tried one out with my nephew but never had the time to get any better during our short visits.<\/p>\n
Jane McGonigal is 34 years old: closer in age to my nephew than me by at least a dozen years. \u00a0She was 10 when Nintendo was introduced. \u00a0I had just graduated from college. \u00a0It seems to me, that at least in terms of gaming on consoles, age matters. \u00a0Unlike email and word processing and other computer applications, I did not have to learn how to use a Nintendo in order to do my job. \u00a0Gaming was entertainment and thus optional. \u00a0A generation later, it seems like having a game console is equivalent to having a television and homes with kids probably have them. \u00a0I suspect that most homes had a game console before they had a computer.<\/p>\n
There is some data on gaming but it tends to lump all kinds of gaming–console, digital, mobile–together. \u00a0This report <\/a>from the Entertainment Software Association suggests that some 49% of homes have at least one game console. I’m wondering if that includes me since I do have a Wii.<\/p>\n And then I’m also reminded that digital native is in the eye of the beholder. \u00a0I have an old friend with who I have a friendly Trivial Pursuit rivalry. \u00a0During one visit, we decided to play on the Wii. \u00a0I won and my friend, who is about 10 years older, suggested that because I was a techie, I had some kind of edge. \u00a0In her mind, I was the digital native.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I sometimes bristle at the digital native\/digital immigrant divide. \u00a0I feel like I can stand toe-to-toe with any 20-something, and I do every semester when I teach undergraduates. \u00a0They know what they know about Facebook and email but are surprised by much of what I show them. \u00a0They even look at me apologetically when they … Continue reading Feeling Like a Digital Native<\/span>