The Impact of Digital Technology on Digital Natives’ Learning: American Outlook

Abstract Constant development of information and digital technologies changes the learning process and the specifics of social relations between the student and the teacher. The use of new means of communication makes an important contribution to the development of skills in using technology, intensive self-study and social interaction. A new generation of students uses digital technology daily. The article shows the impact of digital technology on a new generation of students, digital natives, and their learning. It has been defined that a lot of scientists have been studying the impact of information technology on digital generation, advantages and disadvantages of digital technologies. It has been stated that some scientists (M. Spitzer, J. Bauer) point out that there isn’t any indication that digital media accelerate or deepen the brain development process and don’t have any positive effect on its development. Today’s students cannot do without IT technologies – computers, mobile phones, the Internet, applications: video and music, text messaging. Nevertheless, Nicolas Carr notices that texting and instant messaging may weaken human creativity. It is also mentioned that multitasking leads to more superficial learning and less efficient processing of information. Generation of digital natives creates their own social network in their virtual world (a new culture of communication, a new language, new abbreviations which are used for writing messages). As for forms and methods of learning, it is extremely difficult for them to attend lessons and they prefer to be active and to work autonomously. They use the Internet as the main alternative to the traditional literary sources. Learning should be interactive, creative and autonomous for them. The organization of the educational process for digital natives is not an easy task, because they require varied and very stimulating learning environment. Thus, it has been proved that new digital technologies and the Internet can bring not only damage and danger, but also give huge benefits. These benefits should be taken into consideration and appropriate educational programs should be developed and introduced into digital natives’ learning.