I worked for 20 years in IT under constant threat that the digital natives were coming. I’ve waited so long now I’m inclined to think the Bogeyman must have whisked them off for a party somewhere and forgot to invite me. So forgive me if I’m a bit sceptical that the gap in knowledge between parents and their digital native offsping is anything more than a scare story dreamt up by some mainframe production engineers one night when they’d run out of JCL to code (I know it’s a stretch but use your imagination).

On behalf of all 40 year olds I take offence at any suggestion that there’s a whole generation of technology savvy kids out there running rings round us and laughing into their collective social networks. In the words of Con Mansell from Cardiff, commenting on the BBC article linked above..

“..we invented it. We use it. We are the age-group who spend the most time online. Some of us work entirely over the internet. Some of us have net-based dot com businesses. We advise our children, going up to university this autumn, on the best hardware setup for their individual needs. This technology is the gift of our generation to their generation. So there.”

Abso-flaming-lutely mate. So unless anyone can come up with convincing evidence that the “digital natives” are capable of anything more challening than “Hi wubu2 w/b cya” I’ll stay quite comfortable up here in my digital superiority bubble thank you very much.

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