Thursday 16 October 2008

Google has always been a verb

Derek Law writes in FreePint (the UK-based publication for information professionals) about how "digital natives" (people who have grown up with computers and internet) use information. In it he pulls factoids from the past 3 Beloit College Mindset lists that help to understand the information environment they have grown up in. For example: They have always had a PIN number. They don't remember when ‘cut and paste' involved scissors. "CTRL" "ALT" "DEL" is as basic as ABC. And today's average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games and 20,000 hours watching TV. Law offers insights into how digital natives do research : "Such users expect research to be easy and feel they can be independent in the process. They don't seek help from librarians and only occasionally from teachers or peers. As a result, when they can't find what they need, they give up and assume that the information cannot be found."

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