Professional adults actually make more significant use of the different capabilities of ICT than anyone else - think of architects or accountants. or zoologists. Examine sales figures and marketing strategies of any major systems vendor.

... this digital world didn’t spring into being magically; it was created by people, the first of whom now belong to the generation Prensky calls “immigrants”. Indeed, many of this generation would have a better idea of how technology works and how particular tools are located in social history than the supposed natives.

And another suggestion is that being digitally native implies an acceptance of rapid change which is less apparent in older people. But I don't think this is anything to do with technology per se; it's just that when you're younger, you're more accepting of or enthusiastic about change than when you're older. Since technology is changing quickly, young people are more comfortable with it than older people, but it's not the technology that's significant, it's the change; you could argue exactly the same thing about fashion.

There is definitely a difference, but first we should dispel the conjecture that there is a fundamental cognitive difference. Andy Clark has demonstrated that there are many such forms of 'extended cognitive apparatus' some of which work in this way and which have done so for many years. Digital online technologies are just the latest addition. There is no revolution in the structure of our brains.

When I watch students working with computers, I don’t see any evidence of digital natives. Their ability to use a computer to create a product - graph, spreadsheet, movie, etc. - is no greater or less that adults. There are undoubtedly some students who are very sophisticated computer users, but as a percentage of the population I would judge that they are equally well represented in the adult population (although I tend to hang out with a particularly geeky crowd given the opportunity). Most students and most adults are quite naive users - they learn simple tasks easily enough, but more complex tasks take more time (although somewhat less with students) and at the end they accomplish these complex tasks by following a series of memorized steps. Quite often the steps they follow are not the most efficient ways of getting the job done, but it does the work. A colleague of mine observed that students don’t really understand the technology any better than most adults, they are just less afraid of making mistakes. They may figure things out on a computer faster, but they are just as likely to be mistaken as an adult.

To the extent his admittedly simple dichotomy of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” has sparked a lot of thoughtful discussion and reflection like the ideas shared in this post and its comments, I think we should agree Prensky’s article and contribution to our collective understanding of educational technology, teaching and learning in the 21st century is worthwhile. None-the-less, I also agree that we need to look beyond that simplistic lens.