07-06-2011, 06:58 AM
ocalicreek Wrote:Natives are those who have grown up not knowing what life was like before the internet and whose entry point into the hobby may very well be a forum such as this. While the former options for interaction are still there and doubtless will continue for another generation at least (if they ever go away entirely), the prefered means of communication for natives remains through digital media with only occasional person-to-person contact.
I am 10 years older than you - born in 1965. In a country where TV was just starting to take off in the 1960s. Throughout my childhood we had only one TV channel - we didn't get more channels until the early 1980s (although some people living close to the border of Sweden could put up a big antenna and catch a couple of Swedish channels in the 1970s).
The year "September never ended" (i.e. the year when the influx of new people to the Internet was not just limited to University students who had learned the ropes by the end of September - but new people started getting online all the time) was 18 years ago.
Even so, Internet penetration into households did not take off that suddenly. Having Internet at home is something which has taken off during the last 10 years or so - currently about 75% of US households have Internet access - which is about three times the rate about 10 years.
So it is the generation which follows ours - people who still are children now, who will grow up with the Net always having been there.
Stein