Is It OK for Employers to Seek Out ‘Digital Natives’?

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/05/04/is-it-ok-for-employers-to-seek-out-digital-natives/

49 102 11 years ago

blogs.wsj.com

delinka• 11 years ago

I am a digital native. I grew up with a computer. I obtained digital connectivity through acquaintances and friends. I got "online" before the Internet existed. I was on a team that wrote one of the first Internet-enabled fantasy sports websites. I've watched my peers (some younger, some older) re-invent the breakthroughs of the 1960s and 1970s and call it these reinventions "brand new."

I am a digital native with decades of experience living in the digital frontiers. Yes, plural.

ukigumo3• 11 years ago

Likewise, and also quite likely we are some of many thousands. Unfortunately I think in this case there are some people re-inventing the meaning of "digital" to signify young.

Enough grumpiness for one day, I'll go organize my Casio collection now.

0xdeadbeefbabe4• 11 years ago

You are supposed to abandon logic before tossing "digital native" around, so I'm not sure you are using it in the same context as the article.

walshemj4• 11 years ago

so do you think Bill Gates and Woz would qualify :-)

raverbashing7• 11 years ago

Neither Woz nor Bill Gates used Agile and TDD in their developments

Neither knows what "the market" demands, no Ruby, no JS, no Java, etc. Maybe they know C, Fortran or 6502/8080 Assembly (recruiter rolls eyes)

So, "thanks for your time and we'll contact you"

petercooper3• 11 years ago

I didn't use that specific term because it sounds as stupid as "rockstar" or "ninja", but when I was hiring recently I only used Facebook ads (which you could target to specific genders or ages, if you wanted - I only targeted by location) and stressed that the job(s) required someone comfortable with the Internet, social media, and Internet culture (which, indeed, they do). I only got applications from people in their mid 20s and younger but found the right people for the job.

ukigumo3• 11 years ago

Out of curiosity, if you had received an application from a 40 something who has been "digital" since before the internet was deemed a human right, would you have felt comfortable hiring him?

walshemj4• 11 years ago

Seconded I have been working in online since before the internet became mainstream Viewdata Telecom Gold/Dialcom.

petercooper3• 11 years ago

Yes. The added experience would have been a plus.

taprun2• 11 years ago

That's interesting! I would have predicted that "digital natives" would be the most likely to use ad blockers (thus not seeing the ads at all)...

walshemj4• 11 years ago

or just be passive consumers of apps on smart phones with a cargo cult level of knowledge.

smacktoward2• 11 years ago

No, people who use ad blockers are cranky old idealists who demand tiresome, expensive relics like "privacy" and "dignity."

Digital Natives™, having never lived in a world with those things, don't cause trouble over them.

notacoward• 11 years ago

I'm sure you feel good about the people you hired, but how do you know that there wasn't someone even better who didn't apply because of the narrow targeting of your ad? If somebody posted their job ad only in the AARP newsletter, would you feel that it had been made available to twenty-somethings? After all, they could read it.

sliverstorm• 11 years ago

This all goes back to the numbers games in hiring. Targeting the listing is cheaper, and if you can identify a subgroup that contains most of the potential candidates for your opening, it might be sensible to target.

Sure, there might be some "big fish" in a group you didn't target, but so long as you are happy with the people you hired, didn't it pay off? Not every position needs to be filled with a rockstar-ninja-pirate-haXX0r. Maybe all you need is a person who can get the job done (imagine that!)

untog• 11 years ago

But presumably using Facebook is also a core component of the actual job, given that it mentioned social media.

mod6• 11 years ago

If part of the job requirement was being very familiar with AARP, the AARP newsletter would probably be a great place to post the ad.

Right?

petercooper3• 11 years ago

I actually believe I choose the most widely disseminated approach. My Facebook ad was targeted to within 20 miles of my town and reached around 10,000 unique people according to Facebook. Only 18,000 people live in my town and it's a very rural area. Even our local paper's job ads page gets fewer readers, I bet.

Two of the people I hired actually didn't even see the ad themselves but had it shared to them by other people, so if older people were looking for a job in my field, I believe they would have had a good chance to see it too.

taprun2• 11 years ago

The title is very misleading and an example of linkbait. It should be something like "Can Employers Request Traits That Older Folks Are Unlikely to Possess?"

angli• 11 years ago

Not really. Think what you will of the merits of the article, but it makes specific reference in the opening sentence to the fact that "digital native has been used to refer to a member of the younger generation weaned on the web and immersed in the language of digital technology," and the example it signifies is an employer ignoring older applicants because of their age rather than their skillsets.

I'm not sure how I feel about the issue, but it seems fairly appropriately titled and asking a narrow question. If I clicked on an article with the title you suggest, I'd expect a discussion of broader issues – manual labor's physical requirements as job criteria, for example.

oh_sigh4• 11 years ago

Why not just say "digitally fluent", or something like that? Discriminating against someone based solely on the year they were born seems illegal(IANAL) and just plain wrong.

oh_sigh4• 11 years ago

Change "Unlikely" to "Cannot" and that sounds about right. You cannot become native in something after the critical period is over, no matter how good you are(this is by definition). The best you can be is "fluent" if you miss the critical period.

For example, if you ask for a native English speaker to write a newsletter, Joseph Conrad would not fit the bill(since he started learning English at 21 years of age), even though in terms of talent he would surely be leagues beyond any random native English speaker.

nosuchthing• 11 years ago

You're claiming there is a skill set or intuitive understanding that can't be learned once you pass age 21?

0xdeadbeefbabe4• 11 years ago

A company seeking 'Digital Natives' would be the company where Dilbert's boss works.

jcadam2• 11 years ago

I'm in my mid-30s, grew up tinkering/programming/etc., but I have to admit I just don't get social media. But then I'm not a very sociable person in general. My wife (not a techie), however, is all over facebook/pinterest/twitter/etc. doing God knows what while I'm coding all day.

How I learned of the existence of Pinterest:

Me: "Where did you say you posted that thing?"

Wife (annoyed): "Pinterest"

"Your what?"

"Pinterest"

"WTF is Pinterest?"

"Seriously?!"

edit: Pintrest, Pinterest, eh?

MorningInfidel• 11 years ago

You've just described my girlfriend and I with uncanny precision

krick2• 11 years ago

Pinterest, btw.

jcadam2• 11 years ago

see what I mean?

raverbashing7• 11 years ago

Oh you don't get social media?

You're using one right now.

davesque4• 11 years ago

This is a web page, sonny. Pretty much as simple as they were in '92.

scrollaway2• 11 years ago

There's a massive difference between topic-centered, article-oriented forums and social-oriented "life walls", in which people are drawn to share their personal life and basically have an "online life hub".

One is centered around the topic, the other is centered around the person.

beambot• 11 years ago

I'm in the same boat. I blame it on karma; I spent a couple decades lambasting people for not knowing about BBS, IRC, email, www, etc.

davesque4• 11 years ago

Seconded. I've never really drunk the social media koolaid and I feel just as native as the next guy. Got started on a used 2400 baud modem in the early nineties when it was not easy to get connected to the internet, let alone browse the web. I feel like that grit's gotta be worth something. Of course, this is to say nothing of the people I know and respect who wrote their first programs on freaking punch cards.

lsaferite2• 11 years ago

A good friend has been trying to get me into SM since Tribe and I've never really liked any platform I've tried. I'm mostly private and find no utility in chronicling my life in the open for everyone to see. If I want to share event from time to time I still do, just not via, for instance, Facebook.

TwiztidK• 11 years ago

I'm in my early 20s and I'm in the same boat. Reddit/HN/Slashdot are the extent of my use of social media and a lot of my peers in college were the same. Hell, I know a handful of people who work at Facebook/Twitter/etc who didn't even have Facebook/Twitter/etc accounts when they were hired, some of them still don't.

raverbashing7• 11 years ago

I suspect that an FB account for Facebook is "Mandatory" (because a lot of work is done "inside" FB - think of it as their internal comm tool, but of course you don't need to use it to post pictures of your weekend)

amyjess2• 11 years ago

Part of that is just gender.

Pinterest is aimed almost exclusively at women. You haven't heard of it because you're a dude and it's not marketed to you or your friends.

Hell, I'm enough of a tomboy that I don't really use it. I looked at it a year and a half ago when I first started transitioning to female because I heard that girls are supposed to like it, and I never got into it because it was all about fashion and shit that I have no interest in.

(OK, I did start getting into it in the last week or so... but I've mostly kept to the '80s/'90s nostalgia boards, which seems to be a much smaller part of the community than the fashion boards.)

DanBC2• 11 years ago

Pinterest is fantastic at what it does, which is an online pinboard of stuff you like around a theme.

The obvious use case is wedding planning. One board each for dresses, rings, locations, cakes, table decorations, invites, etc etc. or for redecorating a room - it's brilliant for that kind of stuff.

(I say brilliant, and I'm a Pinterest fan but the site has some user-hostile behaviours on mobile so I ise it a lot less often than I used to.

rayiner2• 11 years ago

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.

davesque4• 11 years ago

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

chadgeidel• 11 years ago

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.

TeMPOraL• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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

PebblesHD• 11 years ago

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.

yellowapple2• 11 years ago

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.

funkyy4• 11 years ago

Is it OK for Employers to seek out employee they want? Yes, their business, their decision.

0xdeadbeefbabe4• 11 years ago

Exactly, I hope the fairness enforcement lawyers don't get hip to the band listing I saw seeking people under 25—presumably for their drug tolerance?

mentalbastille• 11 years ago

Unless they're discriminating against a protected class, which people over the age of 40 happen to be.

SamReidHughes• 11 years ago

That just means it's illegal.

k__• 11 years ago

Also, there isn't an unlimited supply on young people, so many employers have to settle with older ones...

CountSessine5• 11 years ago

Is it OK for employers to discriminate based on criteria that the applicant can't reasonably change through education or training, like race or gender?

Is that the same as discriminating based on age?

Is 'digital native' HR-code for discriminating based on age?

mod6• 11 years ago

Could 'digital native' be used for discrimination? Sure.

Is it inherently or obviously used that way? No, not likely.

As to the first question, yeah, in many cases it's okay to discriminate based on factors out of the control of applicants. Many disabilities, for instance, will preclude you from many jobs.

funkyy4• 11 years ago

Define discriminate. I think you are using this word to cover up word "decide". It is his business. If he wants to hire only blond woman in their 20s - cool. But if he decides to hire based on skills rather than racial/age quotas or some ridiculous decisions - also cool. You cant change that, thats freedom of PRIVATE business.

smacktoward2• 11 years ago

Take that, everyone other than straight white young men!

funkyy4• 11 years ago

Yeah, we should have force employees to meet the racial/age quotes. Not hire based on skills and employers decision, but based on government messing with freedom to do the business.

6d0debc071• 11 years ago

At least in the UK, that's not the case. You cannot, for instance, specify that only white people need to apply. Not unless you can make a functional argument for why it is a business need that only white people apply. And age is, as far as I'm aware, a protected characteristic in this regard.

Of course, one might claim by asking for "digital natives" one is not discriminating on the basis of age. But this feels like a rather disingenuous claim. Asking for computer skills is not discriminating on the basis of age, but asking that someone be "native" to an environment that did not exist when they were younger is. The older person might be very skilled with computers, but since they were not young when computers were prevalent they are not "native."

And yes, one might make an argument that this was not what they meant by the term "digital native", but it is a questionable enough argument that I would not want to rely on it in court. Not when there are terms that relate more directly to the skills concerned, which do not carry the same connotations of discrimination in this regard.

krick2• 11 years ago

Totally agree.

But I think everyone (including the journalist in the first place) are missing the point again. The problem is, that "digital native" thing is absolutely meaningless. It's basically another ridiculous "ninja-rockstar" thing, in some sense. You can prove I'm not 20 years old, you can prove I am or am not qualified to do the job, you can prove I'm male/female, you can prove I'm white/black/dog/whale, whatever. But you can not prove I am or am not a "digital native". It's absolutely possible, that I never even saw a computer until the last week, and over the last week gained all the knowledge you want me to have, including all the historic background. In fact, without the strict definition what "digital native" is, all this discussion and job announcements containing this word are nonsense, and it seems that if somebody who cares would construct this definition, it would be unverifiable given the current information about the candidate and thus meaningless anyway.

jldugger3• 11 years ago

Digital natives do not exist in numbers you think. Fewer than 1 percent of entering freshmen have ever edited a wiki:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hghekXykt-k&feature=youtu.be...

EDIT: Totally misremembered, its more like 17 percent.

Toast_3• 11 years ago

Why would that even be a metric?

CydeWeys• 11 years ago

Editing a wiki is the kind of experience that is much more valuable to employers than social networking or most common online activities for most occupations, with the exception of marketing/PR-specific roles. Collaborative work on a wiki involves teamwork, research, editing, effective communication, and a whole host of other skills that are useful in a business setting. Blabbing to your friends on Facebook or Twitter doesn't develop these skills.

jldugger3• 11 years ago

It's certainly an advanced skill compared to taking a Facebook quiz, but I think it clarifies the assumptions people have about young people, that they know all the computer things because they grew up using them. That's really not the case.

If you want an alternative metric, something like 1 in 3 entering freshmen don't know what the BCC feature does in email. We know that pretty much everyone uses email daily (despite what they tell parents and teachers), so it cannot be that immersion alone leads to proficiency, or that proficiency cannot be learned as an adult.

If you want to rate candidates by skill, by all means do so, just don't go the extra discriminatory step of saying old people by definition cannot pass your measurement, and that young people by definition do.

kefka• 11 years ago

Digital Native, eh?

I've been on the Internet since '86, when my dad was at school at Purdue. I had a commodore 64, and 2 1541 drives. One was hacked by me for bootlegging.

I did the BBS'es but found them boring when compared to the 'net. I could also get into newsgroups which had a wealth of knowledge and the connections to talk to the greats of CompSci.

I remember when we got our first dialup service, back when there here dozens of ISPs, and when Windows didn't have an IP layer. I remember setting up my own FreeBSD server to handle networking and dialup mediation (was 13). I lucked in at an auction and got a SunSparc lunchbox. Crazy computer.

I obtained my amateur radio license, as well as learning about analog circuitry and tubes. That's old, even by the previous generation's standards. And yet, I now 3d print tube sockets for my 300+ collection of tubes. Hard to buy them these days, so I make them. Oh, and I'm also good at 3d design.

I saw the advent of Google, and how it overtook Yahoo, Altavista, Lycos, and other older search engines. I remember Napster, Kazaa, and others. I still have the first file ever bittorrented, porn. I remember when I heard about the Harvard social network, The Facebook. I knew it would kill MySpace, even then.

I'm 33. Am I too old for "Digital Native"?

butterfi• 11 years ago

The term "Digital Native" is one of my biggest pet peeves. I once asked Howard Rhinegold if he felt there was any justification to the "digital natives" idea and he expressed that in his experience in teaching freshmen at both Stanford and Cal, there was no such person.

I started playing with computers in the late 70's. Got my first job working in video arcades in the early 80's. Got my webmaster job in '94. If my kids are digital natives, what does that make me?

edited for clarity

protomyth• 11 years ago

No, employers are not allowed to come up with a code word that allows them to exclusively hire younger people. Switch "digital native" with "millennial" and see how that fairs in court.

Also, I really resent the implication on this one, like many in this thread. I grew up with a computer and digital communications before the internet.

balls187• 11 years ago

"Smart, talented, and can get the job done."

That's what I look for.

Also:

"Can they be coached?"

"Do they need coaching?"

"How is their personality?"

"How do they display passion?"

ichbinant• 11 years ago

When I hear "digital native", I think of a generation familiar with Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, etc... So they would -somehow- be more familiar with creating content for those platforms.

I don't think it's an age issue.

Or else how can you not call someone who has been in the IT business for 30 years a "digital native"?

It is about what part of that "digital" you are dealing with.

alexqgb• 11 years ago

FWIW, Tim Berners Lee wasn't a "digital native" and he understood the web well enough to invent it.

srryaccntcrtn• 11 years ago

Even though I'm a millenial guy myself but one of those pioneers of the generation - no not a 90s kid - and I still feel that younger folks than me are at advantage compared to us we slightly older folks when it comes to technology.

I have not taken computers seriously till 2000 and the internet not before 2005 (The broadband revolution took some time to enter my country of origin) and as we might all know, the web back then was more or less pathetic thanks to MSIE monopoly and the resulting stagnation.

So, I didn't take web development seriously back then and I waited for the thing to explode and rise meteorically before jumping the bandwagon and therefore I'm kind of behind the curve when it staying updated of all the ongoing developments in the field compared to my younger peers who are more "digital native" to these technologies than me and therefore less suitable for "young" jobs in startups or orgs.

I think we should accept that our field favors young talents like pro sports and athletics and everyone of us has a "shelf life" in a certain role in the organization and that he/she should strive to move the higher rank in managerial or lead position as soon as possible before getting displaced by younger talents who are fresh, ambitious, eager to learn and achieve and have high exposure to all the new "fancy" and "shiny" technologies that the market demands at the time.

Is It OK for Employers to Seek Out ‘Digital Natives’?

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