Sunday, November 16, 2008

"Digital Native"

I watched a TV program which titled "Digital Native" made by Japanese broadcast company called NHK. Digital Native means young people who have been using computers and the internet since the time when they were teen age or less age. They are more familiar with computer technologies than older generation, so their sense of value is quite different from older generations. They can have global relationships through the internet and they don't hesitate to have these relationships. They don't care about ages, titles and sexualities. In addition, they don't have any distinction between real world and virtual world.

This TV program introduced three types of person. The first one is a 13 years-old boy who built his own business. He had an idea of a card game, and he got investment from a government's venture support program. He looked for some professional person – illustrators, logo typist and package designers on SNS (a kind of the internet service), and he ordered them for this product. He didn't hesitate to ask his requests to these adult people.

The second one is a young Japanese guy who built his own company that provide some internet services. His policy is unique. Even when his company could be listed in the stock market, he didn't care about that. He said that the important thing is how they can provide good services on the internet and anything else are not important for them. The program said old generations tend to try to make their own profit but new generations have different sense of value.

The third one is an African young guy. He is working voluntarily for AIDS problem, because he lives in the society that there are seriously AIDS problem in Africa. He is managing his own organization and makes negotiations to other AIDS problem organization and individual activists through the internet. He is not rich and his country is a developing country, but he can connect all over the world's these kinds of people with computer. He wanted to have an opportunity of presentation on the international AIDS conference for speaking about his own country's problems. He campaigned it on the internet and got advice from activists who are in all over the world, asked them to help. Finally he got this opportunity.

I think that we can expect the hope of our future to Digital Native. They might be able to change the world. For example, Obama got a lot of donate from volunteers' contribution through the internet, and he brought a big change to the presidential election. Some new situations are growing globally in this world. I might need to study English more to take part in it.

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