Return of the [digital] native

I’m old enough to remember when the line ‘each household appliance is like a new science in my town‘ was actually true, so I see myself very much as a ‘digital immigrant‘.

What does that actually mean in this ever changing world of ours? Well, if a digital native is someone who was born into this age of the internet and sees old technology as simply that, old, then a digital immigrant is best summed up as:

‘Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants.’

Yup, that feels like me. I work online, I share everything digitally and everything I do revolves around the world wide web. I’ve accepted that my CD collection is now backed up on a number of hard drives around the house and the physical discs stuffed in the loft. New stuff is only bought as a ‘digital download’ and the physical discs I do buy are now few and far between (how many more Morrissey ‘Legacy Editions’ will there be?).

When it comes to movies, I’ve decided that I won’t even start a Blu-ray collection as the DVDs I own are gathering dust and renting from the likes of Lovefilm works out so much better for me and the family. So, I fully identify with being a digital immigrant – I’m getting to grips with the language and rituals of a world I wasn’t born into.

However, this is where I show my old-school roots – while I now buy books and graphic novels mostly online, I’ve hated every e-reader I’ve ever tried. Reading a book on a handheld device is awkward enough, so something like All Star Superman only works when you’ve the thing physically in your hands. The artwork of Frank Quitely just doesn’t translate on to a monitor – even though I’m fully aware that’s how he draws these days!

Is it the touch, the feel, or simply the smell of books that only work in a physical medium? I don’t know but it’s something I’m not about to give up on. I write and edit online all day so I know that screens are better than they were and reading swathes of text on a screen is no longer a chore but books are fueled, like the internet, by words and pictures. So, while it’s all well and good acknowledging the rituals and languages of our new world, there is still plenty to be learnt from where we came from – that it’s right words and pictures delivered in the medium of OUR choosing that are important, otherwise we’re destined to make the same mistakes.