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Korea Herald
6 hours ago
- General
- Korea Herald
[Lim Woong] Teaching digital natives
When Marc Prensky, an American writer, introduced the term "digital natives" in a 2001 article, he proposed a clear distinction between those born into the digital age and those who had to learn and adapt to digital technologies. Since then, the terminology has expanded: we now hear of digital immigrants, nomads and tribes — each reflecting different relationships with our rapidly evolving technological world. At first glance, today's young generations seem to fit the mold. Instagram stories flash across the screen, demanding attention; TikTok videos compress complex ideas into seconds, often offering little lasting value. Online or mobile gaming isn't just a pastime but a habitat. Travel and self-care trends are curated online, liked and shared. Homework? One Google/Naver search, a YouTube tutorial, a prompt to ChatGPT — and it's done. Yet beneath this surface-level fluency lies a paradox: mastery of digital tools does not equate to mastery of thought or an authentic sense of learning. After all, being skilled in media use or shopping platforms does not necessarily make one discerning, reflective, or resilient. That said, generational labels like "digital natives" or "Generation Z" can help identify broad social patterns. They can guide schools and educators in designing relevant curricula. For example, it's often claimed that digital natives are liberated from rote memorization and traditional knowledge-based schooling. However, memorization is widely regarded as essential by learning scientists. It enables students to retrieve, combine and build upon knowledge. If we abandon memory because "AI can remember for you," we risk losing literacy. The result could be a classroom divided — not only by ability, but by access to AI tools and the ability to think critically about their use, potentially widening educational inequalities. In 'The Anxious Generation,' Jonathan Haidt warns that smartphones and social media are rewiring children's brains. Constant screen exposure increases the risk of dependency, as their brains demand ever more dopamine-triggering content. The consequences? Shortened attention spans, diminished tolerance for complex stories and weakened empathy. Children immersed in short-form media may struggle to process long texts or to interpret emotional subtleties in relationships. These concerns have prompted governments across the globe to restrict or ban smartphone use among children. But meaningful reform demands more than bans — it requires strong civic literacy, critical thinking and the ability to separate fact from disinformation. So it's quite troubling to hear that resistance to smartphone bans in classrooms is framed as a matter of student rights. Allowing unrestricted smartphone use during instruction is akin to handing out soda and YouTube to pacify a public tantrum. Public education must stand for more than appeasement. On the other hand, generational narratives can be misleading. As Rebecca Eynon of the University of Oxford explains, technology use exists on a spectrum shaped by education, gender and socioeconomic context — not by catchy metaphors. Nature once published a piece titled "Homo zappiens," only to conclude that the so-called tech-savvy generation may not differ significantly from those before them. Also, politicians and marketers often capitalize on generational branding. Millennials prefer this, Gen Z buys that and Gen Alpha wants something else. These sweeping claims obscure more serious divides — particularly within age groups — related to education, income and opportunity. Sociologist Jin-Wook Shin of Chung-Ang University argues that viewing inequality solely through an age-based lens distracts from the deepening class-based divisions within each generation. These dynamics reflect recurring patterns of human society. Good educators already know this. They refuse to reduce students to simplistic categories. Instead of assuming that every child is a digital native, we should resist untested assumptions. Not all teens thrive through gamified learning or digital platforms. Educators must engage students as individuals. What young people need most are not brainwave-monitoring headsets or VR goggles, but real human connection: authentic stories, lasting friendships, play and a sense of belonging. Ultimately, embracing the uniqueness of each student is essential. Imagine youth as a forest — almost uniform from a distance, but filled with quiet variation: moss growing in shade, early-turning maples and slender saplings reaching for the sky. Algorithms trained on averages may predict, "green today, perhaps green — or not — tomorrow," but human educators perceive the nuance. They notice the outliers, the overlooked, the quietly flourishing. That ability to truly see and nurture others lies at the heart of teaching. This attentive seeing — this honoring of complexity — is the true work of education. It ensures that no learner, regardless of digital fluency, is overlooked. In an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, let us recommit to fostering community, honoring diversity and upholding dignity. I believe overinvesting in AI while underinvesting in teachers, students and all members of the school community undermines the core of education. We must invest not just in tools, but in people.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Gen Z Is More Worried About AI Taking Their Jobs Than You Might Think, According to New Study
It turns out that Gen Z is often just as anxious about artificial intelligence booting them from a job as many other people. One of the most common assumptions made in corporate America over the last quarter century is that "digital natives"-a term coined by educator Marc Prensky in 2001-are inherently comfortable with digital technology. It's a logical inference. Almost any discipline one grows up with is easier to master than one learned in adulthood, which gives a natural edge to millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012). But just because young people might be comfortable with technology doesn't mean they don't worry about it-especially when it comes to the growing influence of AI. "Gen Z: Redefining the Future of Work,' a white paper from Netherlands-based Top Employers Institute, draws its insights from interviews with 1,700 people aged 18-17 who live in nine countries on four continents. And while some of its analysis confirms common assumptions about Gen Z's workplace attitudes (83% of them said employers are responsible for their workers' mental health, for example), one finding is something of a needle scratch. A Gen Z Marketer's Playbook for Engaging Advertising A Gen Z Marketer's Playbook for Engaging Advertising For example, while 77% of Gen Zers hoped that AI would "allow them to learn new skills" and 72% said they felt prepared to take advantage of the technology, only 60% thought that AI would have a positive effect on their individual careers. Indeed, a fifth of the young respondents disagreed-somewhat or strongly-that AI would benefit their professional lives. That disgruntlement was even more pronounced when it came to young workers in media and advertising jobs. Only 50% of them thought that AI "will create new work opportunities for me," a chilly retort to the common narrative that AI will create new jobs even as it eliminates others. "What we found in our research was a much more muted outlook," the paper's authors state. "This generation recognizes that AI is here to stay, and has some short-term benefits, but [Gen-Z employees] also have some anxiety about how it may impact their lives, and the lives of other employees, in the long-term." In a notable wrinkle, Gen-Z wariness over AI was predominantly a western-world phenomenon. Only about half of respondents in the U.K. and the U.S. (50% and 54%, respectively) believed that AI would have a positive effect on their careers. By contrast, in China and India, those figures were 73% and 80%, respectively. The bifurcated feeling that AI could be a force for good in the workplace even as it threatens individual workers also appeared in a Deloitte paper published last year. In that study, while 79% of Gen-Z workers who frequently used AI believed in AI's ability to "improve the way they work" in the future, 78% admitted that AI would eventually force them to "look for job opportunities that are less vulnerable to automation."
