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Digital Natives or Digital Castaways? Processes of Constructing and Reconstructing Young People’s Digital Identity and Their Educational Implications

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Identity in a Hyperconnected Society

Abstract

The term digital natives was coined a few years ago, compared to what could be digital immigrants. And we have been using them to explain the different social changes caused by technology and the social classification we can use to undertake one educational approach or another. We proposed the hypothesis that children and young people are not digital natives, and we question the excessive value given to technology as a learning tool. We back this hypothesis with the absence of meaning and critical thinking by young people when on the Internet, to search for and use information. And we argue the processes humans use in this technological scenario to reconstruct their identity, all from an understanding of technology as culture in the sense that it creates ways of thinking, of being and acting different from traditional ways, eventually also changing how we perceive and create realities, including our own identity and that of the things in the world and, therefore, education itself.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    José Manuel Muñoz-Rodríguez, Arsenio Dacosta & Judith Martín-Lucas

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  1. José Manuel Muñoz-Rodríguez
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  2. Arsenio Dacosta
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  3. Judith Martín-Lucas
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Correspondence to José Manuel Muñoz-Rodríguez .

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  1. Faculty of Education, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    José Manuel Muñoz-Rodríguez

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Muñoz-Rodríguez, J.M., Dacosta, A., Martín-Lucas, J. (2021). Digital Natives or Digital Castaways? Processes of Constructing and Reconstructing Young People’s Digital Identity and Their Educational Implications. In: Muñoz-Rodríguez, J.M. (eds) Identity in a Hyperconnected Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85788-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85788-2_2

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