Growing up with smartphones builds comfort with devices. Judging information is a separate skill — and it still has to be taught.
A 24-year-old associate builds a slick client deck in an hour. Three of its statistics trace back to a blog that made them up.
The myth. People who grew up with digital technology learn differently, so their training should be shorter, faster, and built around apps.
Why it sticks. In 2001, writer Marc Prensky coined the term "digital natives" in two widely read essays. Schools and corporate academies adopted the idea fast. The essays offered little data.
What the research shows. In 2017, Paul Kirschner and Pedro De Bruyckere reviewed the evidence. They found no sign of a generation that learns in a fundamentally different way. Comfort with devices did not make young people better at finding, judging, or using information.¹
Try this instead. Teach judgment directly: how to check a source, when to stop searching, what makes an answer usable.
Talent Takeaway
We can design for the task at hand, whatever the birth year. Telling a solid source from a shaky one is a skill — and one we can teach every junior colleague early on.
¹ Kirschner, P. A., & De Bruyckere, P. (2017). The myths of the digital native and the multitasker. Teaching and Teacher Education, 67, 135–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.06.001
