[rayiner]

The term "digital native" irks me for another reason, which is the presumption that younger people have a better understanding of technology than older people. Kids these days understand the Facebook and the Twitter, but they're deeply insulated from how computers actually work.

One thing my wife pointed out to me is that her teenaged siblings have a lot more trouble finding things on Google than she does, because they don't remember constructing search terms from back before Google got (relatively) good at parsing natural language.

[TeMPOraL]

> Kids these days understand the Facebook and the Twitter, but they're deeply insulated from how computers actually work.

I agree and it reminds me of an excellent rant on that topic: http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-comput....

[Redoubts]

It scares me that that article was written in 2013. It sounds like it came out of 2003.

[davesque]

They know Facebook but they don't know pointers :).

[PebblesHD]

Whilst I agree that hiring someone based entirely on age is not the best way to get a great team, and that not all older people are worse than all young people when dealing with technology, your generalisation that 'Kids these days understand the Facebook and the Twitter, but they're deeply insulated from how computers actually work.' is flawed and almost entirely incorrect. Kids these days (in general) are no less informed about technology than the kids of 30 years ago. In general I'd say kids these days know many times more than kids of that period simply because they've been exposed to it for longer, and then the young people who are actually interested in computers know many times more than that.

[yellowapple]

That's all fine and dandy in theory, but from personal experience, I've found that it hasn't made much of a difference, probably for the same reason that the proliferation of automobiles has yet to result in the world's youth being proficient in automotive repair, or that the proliferation of the written word has yet to result in the world's youth being composed of poets and novelists.

The reason (in my observation, at least) is that being familiar with using something doesn't immediately translate to being familiar with creating something. Now, for a job where the using is important, a "digital native" might actually stand a chance (assuming that the something being used is similar enough to what he/she has used previously that patterns can be matched and the candidate's brain can perceive the thing being used as "intuitive" or "user-friendly"), but the article seems to imply the creation side of things (by referencing "media giants" and startups), where the skills don't completely cross over.

[chadgeidel]

To your point about young people not actually having a better understanding of technology I really think the question should be "Should employers should seek out 'Logical/Rational natives'". It's frustrating to see folks (young and old alike - I don't think this is related to age or knowledge of tech) with a complete lack of critical thinking when using powerful search tools.

I incorrectly assume that more access to information implies a greater level of critical thinking. I think this is probably due to my engineering educational background - I'm not an engineer myself, but it was drummed into me at my engineering-heavy university.