
Is It OK for Employers to Seek Out ‘Digital Natives’? - pierrealexandre
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/05/04/is-it-ok-for-employers-to-seek-out-digital-natives/
======
rayiner
The term "digital native" irks me for another reason, which is the presumption
that younger people have a better understanding of technology than older
people. Kids these days understand the Facebook and the Twitter, but they're
deeply insulated from how computers actually work.

One thing my wife pointed out to me is that her teenaged siblings have a lot
more trouble finding things on Google than she does, because they don't
remember constructing search terms from back before Google got (relatively)
good at parsing natural language.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Kids these days understand the Facebook and the Twitter, but they 're
> deeply insulated from how computers actually work._

I agree and it reminds me of an excellent rant on that topic:
[http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-
comput...](http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/).

~~~
Redoubts
It scares me that that article was written in 2013. It sounds like it came out
of 2003.

------
delinka
I am a digital native. I grew up with a computer. I obtained digital
connectivity through acquaintances and friends. I got "online" before the
Internet existed. I was on a team that wrote one of the first Internet-enabled
fantasy sports websites. I've watched my peers (some younger, some older) re-
invent the breakthroughs of the 1960s and 1970s and call it these reinventions
"brand new."

I am a digital native with decades of experience living in the digital
frontiers. Yes, plural.

~~~
walshemj
so do you think Bill Gates and Woz would qualify :-)

~~~
raverbashing
Neither Woz nor Bill Gates used Agile and TDD in their developments

Neither knows what "the market" demands, no Ruby, no JS, no Java, etc. Maybe
they know C, Fortran or 6502/8080 Assembly (recruiter rolls eyes)

So, "thanks for your time and we'll contact you"

~~~
walshemj
I recently called up a recruiter who was looking for a C++ developer to port
some Fortran CFD code - realy just for a laugh.

Though why the cant they give a developer a copy of McCracken and tell them to
learn the language - which was what I did when I left school

------
jcadam
I'm in my mid-30s, grew up tinkering/programming/etc., but I have to admit I
just don't _get_ social media. But then I'm not a very sociable person in
general. My wife (not a techie), however, is all over
facebook/pinterest/twitter/etc. doing God knows what while I'm coding all day.

How I learned of the existence of Pinterest:

Me: "Where did you say you posted that thing?"

Wife (annoyed): "Pinterest"

"Your what?"

"Pinterest"

"WTF is Pinterest?"

"Seriously?!"

 _edit: Pintrest, Pinterest, eh?_

~~~
raverbashing
Oh you don't get social media?

You're using one right now.

~~~
davesque
This is a web page, sonny. Pretty much as simple as they were in '92.

~~~
niklasni1
Yeah, Hackernews is basically pg's guestbook and it needs more MIDI.

~~~
raverbashing
Don't forget the visitor counter and the "men working" gif

~~~
devonkim
Optimized for IE used to be what the cool kids did because it supported
iframes before Netscape and all of a sudden it wasn't a big deal to use frames
in that way. It took a while before div based layouts actually were easy to
get working in most browsers to the point where most people stopped using
Photoshop and cutting everything into borderless tables.

~~~
yellowapple
I'm not afraid to admit that I still do table-centric HTML design on occasion
(disclaimer: for specific, usually non-public, uses); it's really not all that
much worse semantically than the current trend of "oh I'll assign a grid-
three-seventeenths-or-whatever-the-fuck CSS class to this div in
WangularStrap.js", considering that in both cases you're embedding formatting
information in the data being presented (and therefore totally missing the
point of "semantic" web programming).

------
petercooper
I didn't use that specific term because it sounds as stupid as "rockstar" or
"ninja", but when I was hiring recently I only used Facebook ads (which you
_could_ target to specific genders or ages, if you wanted - I only targeted by
location) and stressed that the job(s) required someone comfortable with the
Internet, social media, and Internet culture (which, indeed, they do). I only
got applications from people in their mid 20s and younger but found the right
people for the job.

~~~
notacoward
I'm sure you feel good about the people you hired, but how do you know that
there wasn't someone even better who didn't apply because of the narrow
targeting of your ad? If somebody posted their job ad only in the AARP
newsletter, would you feel that it had been made available to twenty-
somethings? After all, they _could_ read it.

~~~
sliverstorm
This all goes back to the numbers games in hiring. Targeting the listing is
cheaper, and if you can identify a subgroup that contains most of the
potential candidates for your opening, it might be sensible to target.

Sure, there might be some "big fish" in a group you didn't target, but so long
as you are happy with the people you hired, didn't it pay off? Not every
position needs to be filled with a rockstar-ninja-pirate-haXX0r. Maybe all you
need is a person who can get the job done (imagine that!)

------
taprun
The title is very misleading and an example of linkbait. It should be
something like "Can Employers Request Traits That Older Folks Are Unlikely to
Possess?"

~~~
oh_sigh
Change "Unlikely" to "Cannot" and that sounds about right. You cannot become
native in something after the critical period is over, no matter how good you
are(this is by definition). The best you can be is "fluent" if you miss the
critical period.

For example, if you ask for a native English speaker to write a newsletter,
Joseph Conrad would not fit the bill(since he started learning English at 21
years of age), even though in terms of talent he would surely be leagues
beyond any random native English speaker.

~~~
nosuchthing
You're claiming there is a skill set or intuitive understanding that can't be
learned once you pass age 21?

~~~
unsignedint
I think the point that the parent post is making is that while one can learn
to be proficient in a certain topic, he/she can't call it "native" unless it
is in fact, "native" in definition.

It's as much as you can't claim native to a specific country if you are not
born/raised in that country.

------
jldugger
Digital natives do not exist in numbers you think. Fewer than 1 percent of
entering freshmen have ever edited a wiki:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hghekXykt-k&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hghekXykt-k&feature=youtu.be&t=706)

EDIT: Totally misremembered, its more like 17 percent.

~~~
Toast_
Why would that even be a metric?

~~~
CydeWeys
Editing a wiki is the kind of experience that is much more valuable to
employers than social networking or most common online activities for most
occupations, with the exception of marketing/PR-specific roles. Collaborative
work on a wiki involves teamwork, research, editing, effective communication,
and a whole host of other skills that are useful in a business setting.
Blabbing to your friends on Facebook or Twitter doesn't develop these skills.

~~~
Toast_
My first thought if I was hiring, and a prospect noted that they were
experienced in editing wikis, is that they were involved in blackhat SEO.

------
butterfi
The term "Digital Native" is one of my biggest pet peeves. I once asked Howard
Rhinegold if he felt there was any justification to the "digital natives" idea
and he expressed that in his experience in teaching freshmen at both Stanford
and Cal, there was no such person.

I started playing with computers in the late 70's. Got my first job working in
video arcades in the early 80's. Got my webmaster job in '94\. If my kids are
digital natives, what does that make me?

edited for clarity

------
kefka
Digital Native, eh?

I've been on the Internet since '86, when my dad was at school at Purdue. I
had a commodore 64, and 2 1541 drives. One was hacked by me for bootlegging.

I did the BBS'es but found them boring when compared to the 'net. I could also
get into newsgroups which had a wealth of knowledge and the connections to
talk to the greats of CompSci.

I remember when we got our first dialup service, back when there here dozens
of ISPs, and when Windows didn't have an IP layer. I remember setting up my
own FreeBSD server to handle networking and dialup mediation (was 13). I
lucked in at an auction and got a SunSparc lunchbox. Crazy computer.

I obtained my amateur radio license, as well as learning about analog
circuitry and tubes. That's old, even by the previous generation's standards.
And yet, I now 3d print tube sockets for my 300+ collection of tubes. Hard to
buy them these days, so I make them. Oh, and I'm also good at 3d design.

I saw the advent of Google, and how it overtook Yahoo, Altavista, Lycos, and
other older search engines. I remember Napster, Kazaa, and others. I still
have the first file ever bittorrented, porn. I remember when I heard about the
Harvard social network, The Facebook. I knew it would kill MySpace, even then.

I'm 33. Am I too old for "Digital Native"?

------
protomyth
No, employers are not allowed to come up with a code word that allows them to
exclusively hire younger people. Switch "digital native" with "millennial" and
see how that fairs in court.

Also, I really resent the implication on this one, like many in this thread. I
grew up with a computer and digital communications before the internet.

------
srryaccntcrtn
Even though I'm a millenial guy myself but one of those pioneers of the
generation - no not a 90s kid - and I still feel that younger folks than me
are at advantage compared to us we slightly older folks when it comes to
technology.

I have not taken computers seriously till 2000 and the internet not before
2005 (The broadband revolution took some time to enter my country of origin)
and as we might all know, the web back then was more or less pathetic thanks
to MSIE monopoly and the resulting stagnation.

So, I didn't take web development seriously back then and I waited for the
thing to explode and rise meteorically before jumping the bandwagon and
therefore I'm kind of behind the curve when it staying updated of all the
ongoing developments in the field compared to my younger peers who are more
"digital native" to these technologies than me and therefore less suitable for
"young" jobs in startups or orgs.

I think we should accept that our field favors young talents like pro sports
and athletics and everyone of us has a "shelf life" in a certain role in the
organization and that he/she should strive to move the higher rank in
managerial or lead position as soon as possible before getting displaced by
younger talents who are fresh, ambitious, eager to learn and achieve and have
high exposure to all the new "fancy" and "shiny" technologies that the market
demands at the time.

------
funkyy
Is it OK for Employers to seek out employee they want? Yes, their business,
their decision.

~~~
CountSessine
Is it OK for employers to discriminate based on criteria that the applicant
can't reasonably change through education or training, like race or gender?

Is that the same as discriminating based on age?

Is 'digital native' HR-code for discriminating based on age?

~~~
mod
Could 'digital native' be used for discrimination? Sure.

Is it inherently or obviously used that way? No, not likely.

As to the first question, yeah, in many cases it's okay to discriminate based
on factors out of the control of applicants. Many disabilities, for instance,
will preclude you from many jobs.

~~~
CountSessine
_Could 'digital native' be used for discrimination? Sure. Is it inherently or
obviously used that way? No, not likely._

'Digital native', interpreted literally is nonsense - almost by definition it
requires context to have meaning. We can't talk about meaning being 'inherent'
or 'obvious' without figuring out the context.

I think it's charmingly naive to think that a company advertising a job for a
'digital native' would always or even usually mean "we're looking for someone
immersed in digital technology and culture". I can tell you given my
experience and also given the amazing ubiquity of H-1B fraud, there are plenty
of companies who are actually trying to say, "we're trying to use a phrase
that attracts the young and the naive - kids who won't ask for their legally-
entitled mat leave, won't claim their negotiated time-off to look after kids,
are willing to work lots of unpaid hours on weekends, and don't know enough
about the way the job market works to negotiate for equity in exchange for all
the unpaid hard work they'll do".

 _As to the first question, yeah, in many cases it 's okay to discriminate
based on factors out of the control of applicants. Many disabilities, for
instance, will preclude you from many jobs._

What about being black? Or female? The parent poster boldly declared, " _Yes,
their business, their decision_ ", which just isn't true - acting accordingly
could actually be illegal.

~~~
mod
"Digital native" doesn't seem to violate any discrimination laws. It certainly
doesn't equate to "black" or "female."

The parent made their comment in that context.

~~~
CountSessine
_" Digital native" doesn't seem to violate any discrimination laws. It
certainly doesn't equate to "black" or "female."_

What does "digital native" mean in the context of hiring? Does it mean age
discrimination? I'm guessing that there are a lot of companies that are using
it as a sort of 'job marketing', and that the intention is to specifically
appeal to younger candidates. If so, then, in intention at least, it would be
a violation of the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

The parent made no such distinction, and what he said is literally wrong -
that it's "their business" does not imply that it's "their decision". Or at
the very least, there are constraints on how they make that decision. You
can't systematically discriminate against capable candidates.

~~~
mod
In my mind it's a skillset more than anything else.

My mind doesn't necessarily equate to everyone else's mind.

You're taking the parent at his worst, when HN makes a concerted effort to
take the best possible meaning.

You actually can systematically discriminate against capable candidates and
virtually every hiring process is designed to do that in some form.

Really, I think you're just trolling here.

~~~
CountSessine
_You 're taking the parent at his worst, when HN makes a concerted effort to
take the best possible meaning_

Perhaps, but in the meantime the parent has elaborated on his position and has
confirmed that he really does seem to believe that private business is exempt
from employment discrimination law. Or perhaps he doesn't understand that
there actually is such a thing as employment discrimination law. Or I don't
know. I don't know what's going on in his mind, actually. All I have is what
he's written here - I'm forced to give him the benefit of judging his words
without prejudice - I don't know him and I've never heard of him.

 _You actually can systematically discriminate against capable candidates and
virtually every hiring process is designed to do that in some form_

Well this is ethics vs morality, isn't it? Yes, Daisy, you really can break
the law and get away with it most of the time. But that doesn't make it right,
and I don't like seeing or hearing anyone patting each other on the back about
it or crowing about how PRIVATE business is privileged enough to be able to
hire without considering employment discrimination laws.

 _Really, I think you 're just trolling here_

I don't think that I'm trolling - I'm merely trying to provoke thought in the
Socratic tradition. How am I trolling?

------
ichbinant
When I hear "digital native", I think of a generation familiar with Snapchat,
Instagram, Vine, etc... So they would -somehow- be more familiar with creating
content for those platforms.

I don't think it's an age issue.

Or else how can you not call someone who has been in the IT business for 30
years a "digital native"?

It is about what part of that "digital" you are dealing with.

------
balls187
"Smart, talented, and can get the job done."

That's what I look for.

Also:

"Can they be coached?"

"Do they need coaching?"

"How is their personality?"

"How do they display passion?"

------
alexqgb
FWIW, Tim Berners Lee wasn't a "digital native" and he understood the web well
enough to invent it.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
A company seeking 'Digital Natives' would be the company where Dilbert's boss
works.

