No lack of additional culprits.
Digital natives aren't the only type of natives that the past few generations of
swift technological change have spawned. We've encountered numerous others native-nesses,
and each of these has probably brought with it the claim that those born into
these new technologies perceive the world differently than their parents or older
siblings. It's my guess that what distinguishes these previous sorts of natives
from the digital natives about which we've read so much of late is a successful PR
person.
Numerous times we've been told that the MTV generation sees/experiences
everything as fast edits, such that they perceive
reality as a disjointed sequence of unconnected occurrences. On the other hand,
I don't recall ever reading the claim that the sit-com generation has
to hear canned laughter in order to be aware that something (presumably) funny
is happening (though I seem to recall hearing the claim that people who have grown
up watching Hollywood movies are unable to realize that danger is upon them because
there's no crescendo of foreboding, ominous music to alert them to that danger). I'm fearful to
even ask how what might be called the reality TV generation perceives what
was, until programs of that sort dominated the channels, generally considered
to be reality.
One of the main characters in Mordecai Richler's 1969 novel Cocksure is
what might be called a cinema-native heroine. The blurbs about the book in Amazon.com
and numerous other pages tell us about
the gorgeous Polly, who conducts her life as though
it were a movie, complete with blackouts at all the climactic moments
In other words, she knows she's supposed to put the cake in the oven, but, never
having seen the oven getting turned on in a film, doesn't know about that important
action. When her boyfriend, the hero of the novel, is being chased, he tells her
to call the police, which she's more than willing to do. But her understanding
of calling the police entails, as so often happens in movies, finding an occupied pay phone and knocking frantically on the door in order to demonstrate to the person inside that
she has to make an urgent phone call.
Go to: A function of structure?,
Go to: Dr. Who?, or
Go to: Can we every feel at home?, or
Go to: Carrying cognitive baggage from the old
country