Digital natives learn differently

Digital natives learn differently
	UNSUPPORTED
	"Young people who grew up with digital technology are "digital natives" whose brains and learning styles are fundamentally different from older generations; they are natural multitaskers who need technology-rich teaching to learn."
Domain	Education & Learning
Tactic	Pseudoscience / Junk Science; False Context;
Era	Current
First seen	2001
Origin	An essay by education writer Marc Prensky, "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants," published in 2001, and subsequent books and conference talks
Last reviewed	2026-10-27
	Further reading: books on Education & Learning

The claim that digital natives learn differently became influential in education policy and technology marketing in the 2000s and 2010s. Marc Prensky argued in 2001 that students who had grown up with computers, video games and the internet "think and process information fundamentally differently" from their predecessors, and that teachers, whom he called "digital immigrants," needed to change their methods. Researchers who examined the evidence found that young people's technology skills vary widely, that many are not sophisticated users of technology for learning, and that there is no evidence that their brains work in a fundamentally different way. Research on multitasking shows that people of all ages, including young people, perform worse when switching between tasks.

The claim

Prensky suggested that digital natives were accustomed to receiving information quickly, preferred graphics to text, thrived on instant gratification and could multitask effectively, and that traditional education bored them. He suggested their brains might have physically changed as a result of their experiences. The idea was used to justify large investments in classroom technology and new teaching approaches.

What the evidence shows

Critical review. In 2008 Sue Bennett, Karl Maton and Lisa Kervin published a review in the British Journal of Educational Technology concluding that the claims about digital natives were not supported by evidence and had been accepted largely uncritically. They found great variation in young people's technology use and skills.
Skills vary. Studies have found that many young people use technology mainly for social media and entertainment and lack skills in evaluating information online. Research by the Stanford History Education Group found that many students struggled to judge the credibility of online sources.
Multitasking. A 2009 study by Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass and Anthony Wagner at Stanford found that heavy media multitaskers performed worse on tests of attention and task switching than light multitaskers. Cognitive research consistently shows that switching between tasks carries costs in time and accuracy.
Myths. A 2017 review by Paul Kirschner and Pedro De Bruyckere in Teaching and Teacher Education concluded that the digital native and the multitasker are both myths, and warned that designing education around them could harm learning.
Prensky's revision. Prensky later shifted his emphasis toward "digital wisdom," acknowledging that being born into a digital world does not by itself confer skill.

Why it persists

The digital native idea fits a common intuition that young people are naturally adept with technology, and it was promoted by technology companies and education consultants. It offered a simple explanation for generational differences and a justification for buying devices and software. It also echoed recurring concerns, dating back to television, that new media were changing young people's minds.

Lessons for readers

Generational labels can obscure large individual differences.
Familiarity with technology is not the same as skill in using it to learn.
Ask whether claims about changed brains are backed by neuroscience.
Multitasking generally reduces performance, for people of all ages.
Consider who benefits commercially from educational claims about technology.

Sources

Marc Prensky, "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants," On the Horizon 9, no. 5 (2001).
Sue Bennett, Karl Maton and Lisa Kervin, "The 'digital natives' debate: A critical review of the evidence," British Journal of Educational Technology 39, no. 5 (2008).
Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass and Anthony D. Wagner, "Cognitive control in media multitaskers," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 37 (2009).
Paul A. Kirschner and Pedro De Bruyckere, "The myths of the digital native and the multitasker," Teaching and Teacher Education 67 (2017).