April 29, 2008
A Sociologist Says Students Aren't So Web-Wise After All
Eszter Hargittai, an assistant professor in Northwestern University’s sociology department, has discovered that students aren’t nearly as Web-savvy as they, or their elders, assume.
Ms. Hargittai studies the technological fluency of college freshmen. She found that they lack a basic understanding of such terms as BCC (blind copy on e-mail), podcasting, and phishing. This spring she will start a national poster-and-video contest to promote Web-related skills.
Q. Why do people think young people are so Web-wise?
A. I think the assumption is that if it was available from a young age for them, then they can use it better. Also, the people who tend to comment about technology use tend to be either academics or journalists or techies, and these three groups tend to understand some of these new developments better than the average person. Ask your average 18-year-old: Does he know what RSS means? And he won’t.
Q. What demographic groups are less Web-savvy?
A. Women, students of Hispanic origin, African-American students, and students whose parents have lower levels of education, which is a proxy for socioeconomic status.
Q. What are the practical implications of your research?
A. Students have difficulty evaluating the credibility of information online. Students have been told Wikipedia isn’t reliable, but they haven’t been told why exactly. Most students don’t know that wikis can be edited at that moment. Their eyes just open up wide when they find out.
Q. Are there implications for workplace readiness?
A. There are positive outcomes for those who know how to work and employ tech information, and those who lack information will confront a different situation. In terms of a link with demographic differences, those people who seem to be more savvy are the ones who tend to be in more-privileged positions. There will be an increase in social inequality if this divergence continues this way.
Q. What are the challenges for colleges that hope to better educate students about Web use?
A. How do you fit this into the curriculum? Is it supposed to be an academic department, or through libraries? How can you legitimately stand in front of a classroom when the students have an assumption that they know more about technology than you? At the beginning of my classes, I tell my students, “I know you don’t think I know as much as you because I’m older. I assure you, I know way more than you guys about this.” And they sort of smile, but by the end of the class they realize I’m right. —Catherine Rampell
Posted on Tuesday April 29, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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“Students have difficulty evaluating the credibility of information online”? Read the NY Times and other major newspapers to see how naive professional reporters and their editors are about online information that confirms their prejudices.
— S. Britchky Apr 29, 09:07 AM #
Finally someone says it. We listen ad nauseam to administrators and journalists blather about tech in the classroom and this generation’s web-and-computer savvy. Bollocks. My students (at an R-1) have had enormous difficulty posting documents to Blackboard and WebCT; don’t know how to use a program’s tutorial; don’t know how to save documents in different file formats than the default; don’t realize they can discover basic information about our university (e.g. a phone directory, a registration calendar) through our webpage. They are as tech savvy as they are anything-else savvy: not so much, unfortunately.
— Euro Grrrl Apr 29, 10:59 AM #
So what’s the solution? Should this education begin early? Middle school or elementary? Should it be just in time learning integrated into the discipline studied so students learn the technology as a result of using it in something more contextual (ie. I need to write a report and cite articles so therefore I must learn how to determine what is legitimate web content and what is not.) Or do you suggest using the web should be its own class?
— Gator Apr 29, 12:04 PM #
I teach a library and internet research skills class at an R-1. I used to hear that it’s not necessary because “the kids” already know this. Well, no they don’t. After years of talking advisors ears off the course is now a gen ed requirement and all incoming student athletes must take it because anecdotal reports show they are more successful in their studies if they complete the class. Convincing students they need to take the course and that it’s not a blow off is difficult and finals week is filled with crying students not understanding how they could fail google. If you can stand the tears, this sort of course can make the difference between a failing student and a successful student and in my opinion is well worth teaching.
— tumanurung Apr 29, 04:31 PM #
I wish all those people who blather on about “digital natives” would read this interview. I’m sick of the defeatist attitude that adults will never really “get it” the way younger people do. I even saw one speaker suggest that if we don’t type text messages with our thumbs, then we’re not digital natives and we’ll always be outsiders. It’s not age-based, people. It’s experiential. Explore, and learn to use the tools that are available, and any adult or child who is so inclined can be a savvy user of the web, of social networking, or Second Life. Even grandma can be a level 70 tauren warrior in World of Warcraft, if she wants to. =)
— Ken Apr 29, 05:18 PM #
Those who fear to fail will not learn from experience. They need to have everything digested first. Unfortunately, that will leave them behind all their adventurous colleagues.
— Richard Beldin Apr 29, 05:28 PM #
I recently posted a note on what today’s students do and do not know about IT. They may use the Net, but do so without a conceptual model of the way it works, which both alienates them and leaves them ineffective users.
They also have little or no curiosity about the implications of the Net for individuals, organizations or society.
The post is on an ad hoc blog I set up to supplement a presentation I just gave on “computer literacy.” (A blog seemed more useful than a paper).
While you are at it, check last Sunday’s Doonsbury on student use of the Net during class.
— Larry Press Apr 29, 05:48 PM #
Like their ability (or not) to identify academic quality content from the web, university students have similar problems with simple office applications. Ask a student to set a Tab in a word processing program and they cannot figure out what a Tab is for; ask a student to provide a simple spreadsheet formula and they are lost; require an original slide background for presentation layout and they are shocked that they don’t have to use a ready-made template. Supposedly, our entering college freshman “alreay know this stuff” from K-12 classes, but inevitably, they do not. In my very humble opinion, if the students were taught at all, at least a few of their teachers probably had an inadequate grip on using office software, too.
— Phyllis Sweeney Apr 29, 08:05 PM #
Students generally respond to professor’s expectations with regard to course assignments. If professors require that students use peer-reviewed literature from monographs, reference sources, or journals — and if they help them understand the differences among kinds of literature, then students will try to fulfill those course goals. It doesn’t matter if they find it on the internet or in print. And certainly ask your librarian to help show students to find this literature, through library databases or through Google. Students can be taught how to make rudimentary judgments about literature quality and then they’ll become more proficient over time. They also can become familiar enough with good databases that they’re not limited to what they learned to do before college,
— Sara Penhale, Science Librarian Apr 29, 08:05 PM #
This is News???? Anyone who has taught an online or taught a computer-oriented class knows this. And I have seen lots of articles and reports along the same lines over the past year. But I guess that as long as keynote speakers keep talking about the “digital natives” theses stories need to be posted to remind them that we are really dealing with “digital naives.”
— Alan A. Lew Apr 29, 09:21 PM #
I took an intro to instructional technology course as part of my Master of Education degree in 2003. The class was a 400 level course with mostly future teachers (and seniors at that).
85% did not know excel, power point, publisher or even basic html.
Clearly amazing… and I’m at one of the state’s premiere schools.
So while this isn’t news; it is worth telling the story. Again.
— Good ol' Bubba Apr 30, 08:46 AM #
Librarians have known about this for years. It’s a good story anyway—folks come to library instruction classes with all kinds of skill levels. We try to demonstrate database use and not to Google everything. Hargittai is stating the obvious, but sometimes you have to do that. Students want what is easy and fast…the source be damned.
— bigfruitbasket Apr 30, 08:56 AM #
The broader, underlying issue is that teens and young adults are praised ad nauseum for their ability to ‘process’ information. But fewer and fewer of them seem to actually understand what anything means, or care to. Put a thousand monkeys at a thousand keyboardrs for a thousand years and one of them may write ‘Hamlet’. But he still can’t find Denmark on a map.
— GRF Apr 30, 09:03 AM #
Students excel at those electronic functions that interest them—no more, no less. They’re expert rippers/burners, but pretty clueless at such noisome stuff as setting fonts and margins in Microsoft Word.
— Sat Churmit-Dazhy Apr 30, 10:09 AM #
Someone pointed out above that we “listen ad nauseam to administrators and journalists blather…”
Isn’t that the truth? And it’s those two groups, and it’s for the same reason. They both just repeat what they’ve heard with little or no first-hand experience, and without enough “research” to find out if the “conventional wisdom” is correct.
We who have taught online are constantly being told about online instruction by those who have never done it. At least, that’s the way it is at my college.
— CDD Apr 30, 10:51 AM #
I disagree with the fonts and margins comment in 14. The average student knows how to do these things simply because of paper length requirements, using fonts and margins to stretch a weak paper to meet the requirements. A number of computer skills (even to the more savvy) are irrelevant. BCC and CC are largely unused outside of the business world, which makes them pointless to students. Similarly, basic HTML is not something that most people have any reason to learn.
“Digital Natives” do exactly what #14 says, though: things of interest are learned, all the rest is discarded. I belong to one of the DN generations and, due to interest, I learned how to fix common OS errors and optimize systems. A member of the same generation directly next to me at work can’t recall things beyond copy-paste for data entry. In the same way, though, my father’s generation is stereotyped as knowing a good deal about automobiles. It’s not true of most of his peers.
— B.A.S. Apr 30, 10:59 AM #
I’ve never bought the “digital natives/digital emigrants” paradigm. Just because they “grew up with in the household” doesn’t mean they understand it any better than those of us who were early or even late adopters. We have a better chance of understanding the technology because we had a specific use for it and exploit those features that make our jobs or lives easier. Gen X’ers grew up with VCR’s yet most of then still cannot successfully program one to record a show airing tomorrow night. They’d still be lost if it wasn’t for Tivo. If you really want to get a sense of how the “young folks” don’t understand the technology, just look at MySpace.
— Herbco Apr 30, 11:36 AM #
B.A.S. (#16): umm, no. They learn how to do fonts and margins because they have to—and often they have to be taught how to do it. An astonishingly large number of students feel no sense of incentive to learn how to do anything they didn’t already have a burning desire to do in the first place.
— Sat Churmit-Dazhy Apr 30, 11:41 AM #
There’s a fair amount of self-righteousness and smugness in the comments here. Some thoughts:
1. Where I come from (Vancouver BC, Canada), it’s pretty standard for students to be taught things like setting fonts and margins while in high school. By and large, they do know how to set up an essay, if only, as one person noted, to be able to make a short paper appear longer.
2. A large number of students currently in high school learn HTML at some point (and then probably forget it); I on the other hand, as a member of the infamous Gen. X, had to learn on my own with a book. Then again,
3. Most people don’t need to learn HTML, and most teenagers don’t use RSS. They probably don’t read blogs (that interest came to me in my late twenties, after I finished my M.A.), but if they do, they can use bookmarks or even just the first few letters of a frequently-visited website typed into the address bar. RSS is a thing of preference: many prefer to use it, and many (including me) do not. HTML and RSS are tools for bloggers, writers, and compulsive readers. These interests often arise later in life, and are not necessarily indicative of technological competence.
5. I do not know how to program a VCR. I’ve never owned one. I don’t own TIVO. Our TV sits unused in a closet. I’ve a theory that TV use is more popular with seniors and boomers than with with X-ers, Y-ers, and whatever the next group is called.
6. I wonder how accurate it is to say “students can’t set margins” and the like (the implication of #14, backtracked in #18). It’s possible many students have to be taught how to set margins some time during their first year, but this group is only going to represent a fraction of the student population in general.
— Nathan B. Apr 30, 01:11 PM #
I, too, found undergraduates very unequal in Web facility, some having neither adequate computers at home and others so shy of the University Library that they tried to do on-line research at branch Public Libraries. On the other hand, even Senior Citizen students generally had picked it up, and as to the “authority” of encyclopedias, I just told them that, as with printed ones, it is the author whom you site: a signed article has authority, or a sourced one can be cited as being cited by someone else. The older students had learned that in high school. Among the young, not obviously impoverished, some didn’t know that not all computers are on line. Sum: those who fear the main library also fear the university computer labs, perhaps fear looking dumb by asking for help.
— P. Lawrence Apr 30, 02:13 PM #
Why would anyone be surprised that students come to us not knowing how to set up a spreadsheet, create a PowerPoint presentation, etc. When in their young lives would such skills be required except for a software course? Come on folks, students aren’t deficient beings because they don’t know this stuff. Somebody just needs to teach them, and they’ll pick it up pretty fast.
— ADsr Apr 30, 02:46 PM #
Working for a fine arts college, I see proficiency rates that are all over the board. What exactly does “Web-Wise” mean here? How does this relate to the overall need to have students who are technologically proficient and yet also understand what information and media literacy means? Clearly today’s youth often come to campus with digital tools, and thus to some degree, a skill set, that out paces what was present even three years ago. Mostly what works here is to create productive boundaries around the tools, virtual or not, that we use to educate our students. And personally, I’m much more interested in getting my faculty proficient and literate than my students these days.
— Michael Ambrosino Apr 30, 02:53 PM #
Euro Grrrl said her students “have had enormous difficulty posting documents to Blackboard and WebCT.” That’s not because they aren’t tech-savvy (though that may be the case), it’s because those platforms are designed terribly and used by educators even worse. As a graduate student in a somewhat tech-heavy field (library and info. science), the use of Web CT et al. by universities has always fueled my belief that most educational administrators are completely out of touch. I don’t think I know more than my professors about technology- I know I do not – but I do think they are willing to settle for expensive, clunky, proprietary software/platforms because that is what they are used to as older people. Maybe slightly off topic, but I do think that this fuels a certain resentment from many students – even those without above-average tech. skills/experience.
— E. B. Apr 30, 04:20 PM #
Let’s remember who developed, built, installed, and implemented all this technology? Was it people under 18? The babel of products, interfaces, and services is distracting, and each new ‘upgrade’ recreates ignorance. Young people become skilled regarding their self-interest, whether that is ripping DVDs, MySpace, or filesharing. Not often do these skills translate into school or work.
— J. B. Apr 30, 05:08 PM #
Just as there are students who aren’t savvy in math, english, science, or foreign language – there are students who aren’t savvy in technology. Just as there ARE students who are savvy in these fields, there are students who are savvy in technology.
When are people going to learn that not everyone is alike and not everyone can become well skilled in certain subject areas?
I’m highly educated in computers – I have taken courses in grade school, junior high, high school, and in college. (Yay for magnet schools incorporating technology into courses!) I research software, explore software, and practice software. I have many classmates who have been through the same coursework and learned the same knowledge – but will come to me and ask for my help on the same things they learned. Some people just care and try more – and others don’t.
It just isn’t meant for some people. I work in the Academic Advisement office of my college, helping students use our online registration system. What I have learned while being there is that technology “illiteracy” so to speak – has no age bias. There are just as many 18-25 year olds as there are 30+ year olds who are absolutely terrible with technology. Doing things as simple as scrolling is unfathomable to many and others know from the instant the screen pops up exactly what to do.
The main problem is that people think when something is “born” into a generation that the generation will grasp it and live for it. This is not true. Not everyone thinks and feels the same. This is just like people claiming that all younger generations enjoy the same music. For example, as a child of the 90’s many are often in disbelief when they find out I love 60’s and 70’s music and not boy bands. I am not alone.
People feel they must label and they must claim and stereotype. Hell, psychologist and scientist are paid to do it :)
— CrysD Apr 30, 09:58 PM #
Having taught web searching workshops at a university library for several years, I definitely agree that many students do not know how to construct a precise Google search, narrow the results of an existing search, or take advantage of alternative search engines and human-created web directories. Unfortunately, since people usually aren’t aware of what they don’t know, the demand for this knowledge is not great. But when the light goes on, it’s wonderful to see.
— John Kupersmith Apr 30, 11:48 PM #
I strongly believe that information literacy skills, as well as basic tech-savvy skills should begin early (in, say elementary school) and should continue throughout – yes, THROUGHOUT – high school. A nation-wide curriculum needs to be developed and established, such that these skills are taught with the same frequency, intensity and weight of importance as any other basic skill/required course (Reading, Mathematics, History, etc). Only then will it be possible to level the skill-set playing field.
— Sarah Hood May 5, 04:22 PM #
As a librarian I may be biased, but I wonder if we’re partially seeing the effects of reductions in K-12 library and media center services. Ask most library media specialists and they’ll tell you that in an ideal world information literacy skills are taught from day one. Big 6 and Super 3, for example, are programs specifically targeted at K-12 that have been around for some time.
— A.R. May 6, 01:36 PM #
I think the term “digital native” is misleading. Technically I am one, being born in the first year of the generation, but the term really should be adjusted for socio-economic background. Some people that are a few years older than me have much more experience because their parents had more money to buy the new technology in the 1980s. I didn’t have a stable internet connection until I moved into my University dorm, because my parents could not afford a computer, let alone an internet connection, and my high school didn’t have the capacity to allow “surfing” at school.
Luckily I am a fast learner and consider myself quite web-wise, but that is through a desire to learn and be aware. I grew up with all this technology growing-up around me, not born into it. Digital Native I am not.
— Rachel Leslie May 7, 09:30 AM #
Rachel, I’m glad you mentioned your background, as it’s essential that these sweeping generalizations get some context; and not just the digital divide/socioeconomic factors, but sheer personas/interest levels contributing to the polarity of skill sets as well. (“early adopters” is another misnomer, as I find it’s ageless, and applies more to digital prowess and user-need than a label itself.
Frankly, many of our youth teams could care less about the underpinnings of technology functioning on a ‘need to know’ basis with ‘fast and fun’ being the filtration system used for triage of content, and what ‘sticks’ or ‘goes viral’ follows closely in the marketplace.
Does this concern me? Yes, if it means critical thinking skills are lapsing in favor of data nuggets of convenience, no if it means the ‘how it works’ portion is seamlessly buried in favor of faster ways to access complex content and distill it into meaningful dialogue.
Whether people are using the social side (Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/texting) or the academic side (search/discerning factual data, etc.) of the internet it seems ALL ages are staying in the shallow end instead of diving deep. Web-head or not, I’m more concerned that great thinkers are resorting to 140c Tweets or ‘visual sound-bites’ to convey their digital message when a more robust analysis is warranted…In the age of conversation, we all deserve more meaningful ones.
— Shaping Youth May 7, 01:29 PM #
I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the Age of Radio led to The Greatest Generation: people unified morally around shared purpose—or am I romanticizing the 1930’s and 40’s? But their rich exposure to linear spoken language in radio led to veterans who thrived in college settings (GI Bill); what exposure to linear spoken or written language do “digital natives” have? Terse, telegraphic instant messaging; Facebook, Shoot-em-Up video and computer games, along with DVD’s, all with rich visuals, but where linear language is less critical?
— mehaynes May 7, 10:13 PM #