There’s no such thing as a digital native


Technology is changing too rapidly for us to assume that the next generation will fully understand it. 6park.com
曾经有那么一个时刻，数字原住民和非数字原住民之间的界限是足够清晰的。这个时刻已经过去。



Call it the Abe Simpson principle. The cartoon patriarch, upon being told by his son Homer that he wasn’t “with it”, responded: “I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s it seems weird and scary to me.” Then he warned his son: “It’ll happen to you.” 6park.com
我们就称之为“亚伯•辛普森(Abe Simpson)法则”吧。当动画片《辛普森一家》(The Simpsons)中亚伯的儿子霍默(Homer)跟他说“你不懂这个”时，他答道：“我曾经懂的，但后来他们把‘这个’改了。现在我懂的不是‘这个’，‘这个’在我看来又怪异又可怕。”然后他警告儿子：“你也会经历的。” 6park.com
   
Grampa Abe was right. When the term “digital native” was coined, I used to be one of them. I am part of the cohort that grew up in the information age. I have a distant memory of my mother’s computer — a white, bulky thing which played Solitaire, Minesweeper and a handful of MS-DOS games — briefly seeming like an interloper in our home, but I don’t really remember a time before it arrived. 6park.com
亚伯爷爷是对的。当“数字原住民”这个词被创造出来的时候，我曾经是其中一员。我是在信息时代成长起来的一代人。我记得很久以前我母亲的那台电脑——一个白色的、笨重的东西，可以玩纸牌(Solitaire)、扫雷(Minesweeper)和一些MS-DOS游戏，有一段短暂的时间里它好像我们家的一个入侵者——但我其实已经不记得我们家有电脑之前的事情了。 6park.com
   
I do remember the installation of our broadband, which made me one of the few people in my social circle who didn’t have to hear the dreaded words, “Get off MSN Messenger, I have to make a phone call.”  6park.com
我倒是记得我们家装宽带的情形，装了宽带让我不必听到那句可怕的话——“关掉MSN Messenger，我要打电话了”——成为了我朋友圈里为数不多的幸运儿。 6park.com
   
Nonetheless, the Abe Simpson principle has come for me. I recently attended a closed-door conversation with experts and policymakers about artificial intelligence and the challenges it poses for regulators. One of the attendees remarked that while the challenge was “too big” for the current cohort of regulators, it would be resolved by the rising generation of digital natives. 6park.com
尽管如此，“亚伯•辛普森法则”还是对我下手了。最近，我参加了一场与专家和政策制定者的闭门对话，讨论人工智能及其给监管机构带来的挑战。其中一位与会者表示，虽然这一挑战对于当前的监管机构来说“太大”，但正在成长起来的数字原住民一代会解决这个问题。 6park.com
   
I listened, expecting to discover something about myself and why I was well placed to resolve this issue. Instead, I realised that I am no longer a digital native. Moreover, what a digital native is now seems weird and scary to me. For me, it meant growing up in the era after the advent of the personal computer and when mobile phones were widespread. Now it seems to mean having grown up in an era where you have 24-hour access to the internet whether you want it or not, and everything from farfetched conspiracy to violent pornography is piped into your social media feed. 6park.com
我竖起耳朵听着，期待着了解一些关于自己的知识，了解为什么我是解决这个问题的适当人选。但听着听着，我意识到，我已经不是一个数字原住民了。更严重的是，如今的数字原住民在我看来又怪异又可怕。我原本认为数字原住民意味着成长于个人电脑出现后、手机开始普及的时代。而今数字原住民似乎意味着成长于这样一个时代：无论你想不想，你都随时可以连上网络；从牵强附会的阴谋论到暴力色情，各种各样的内容都被推送到你的社交媒体首页上。 6park.com
   
In some ways, that is wholly unsurprising. Although I have had a mobile device since my early teens and a smartphone from shortly after, I grew up at a point in time when my internet access was easily monitored — something my peers and I took as a fact of life. We had a better intuitive grasp of the technology than our parents, but they still held the controls, and in most cases control of the only computer. 6park.com
某种角度上，这完全不足为奇。虽然我十几岁的时候就有了移动设备，很快又有了智能手机，但在我成长的那个时代，监控未成年上网很容易——我和我的同龄人都接受了这个不可改变的事实。我们比父母对这项技术有着更直觉的掌握，但他们仍然把持着控制权，而且在大多数情况下控制着唯一的一台电脑。 6park.com
   
What it means to be a digital native has changed drastically because the definition of “digital” has changed too. And it will continue to do so: a child entering school for the first time now will have only a half-formed memory of the world without AI. 6park.com
“数字原住民”的含义已经发生了巨大的变化，因为“数字”的定义已经发生了变化。而且这一变化还将继续：现在刚上学的孩子对没有人工智能的世界只会有模糊的记忆。 6park.com
   
As a result, the idea of digital nativeness is becoming less, rather than more, valuable. There was a point at which the division between a digital native and someone who wasn’t one was clean enough to be useful. But even the gap between me — someone who has used a computer for as long as they can remember — and someone who, by dint of being just five years younger, had a smartphone from their early teens, is already quite large. The gap between both of us and someone who grew up with a tablet from birth is larger still. 6park.com
因此，数字原住民的概念正变得越来越没有价值，而不是越来越有价值。曾经有那么一个时刻，数字原住民和非数字原住民之间的界限是足够清晰的，这种区分是有用的。但即使是我——一个从记事起就在使用电脑的人——和一个因为比我小五岁，所以从十几岁就开始使用智能手机的人之间的差距已经很大了。我们两个和那些从出生起就拿着平板电脑长大的人之间的差距更大。 6park.com
   
In addition, it’s not just hardware that is changing. Software is too. Modern technology is both easier and harder to use. As a child, I was able to set up my PlayStation unaided — today that would end up with a crying kid and a broken games console. But other developments, not least in AI, mean a whole range of once complex coding tasks are now within reach for people who don’t know their Ascii from their Cobol. 6park.com
而且发生变化的不仅仅是硬件。软件也是如此。现代技术用起来既简单又难。当我还是个孩子的时候，我可以不用人帮忙自己设置我的PlayStation——今天这样做的结局可能是孩子哭了，游戏机坏了。但其他方面的发展，尤其是人工智能的发展，意味着一个人就算完全不懂Ascii和Cobol，也能搞定一系列曾经复杂的编码任务。 6park.com
   
So the idea that a coming wave of digital natives will be able to regulate better, to solve tricky policy issues or to avoid the dangers we struggle with is alarming wishful thinking. The first generation of digitally native parents is also the first generation to give its children smartphones from a young age, a decision now frequently criticised by teachers and experts. (And, I think, one that is unlikely to be repeated.) 6park.com
因此，认为即将成长起来的一批数字原住民能够更好地监管技术、解决棘手的政策问题或避免我们难以应对的危险，是令人担忧的一厢情愿的想法。第一代“数字原住民”家长也是第一代在孩子很小的时候就给他们智能手机的家长，这一决定现在经常受到教师和专家的批评。（而且我认为，未来的家长应该不会这样做了。） 6park.com
   
Digital natives may have fared more successfully in navigating the world of ecommerce. But there is little evidence that we have proved better at regulating these industries, perhaps because, just like those before us, our success is in building a new world we ourselves don’t fully understand. 6park.com
数字原住民在电子商务世界中可能较为成功。但几乎没有证据表明我们在监管这些行业方面做得更好，也许是因为，就像我们之前的那些人一样，我们的成功在于建立了一个我们自己都不完全理解的新世界。 6park.com
   
The confusion that comes from periods of very rapid technological change outstripping generational knowhow is not over. If you are looking for new product ideas or better ways to exploit existing technologies, the next wave of digital natives may help you. But if you are looking to them as the solution to looming regulatory or policy issues, remember that the Abe Simpson rule comes for us all sooner rather than later. 6park.com
技术变革速度快得一代人的知识水平跟不上，这样的时期所造成的混乱还没有结束。如果你正在寻找新的产品创意或更好地利用现有技术的方法，下一批数字原住民可能会帮助你。但如果你指望他们解决迫在眉睫的监管或政策问题，请记住，亚伯•辛普森法则迟早会找上我们所有人。 6park.com