Matt MacQueen

From The Korea Times via SmartMobs, an interesting culture + technology story with some eye opening conclusions: Kids in Korea are becoming Digital Natives.

The term, “digital native,’’ was coined to refer to the first generation who was born and grew up in the 21st century Internet era surrounded by gadgets like computers and cell phones.

“Some babies here appear to pick up a computer mouse and cell phone earlier than a spoon and chopsticks,’’ said Park Jung-hyun, a senior researcher at LG Economic Research Institute.

“They are genuinely digital natives, a totally different generation from their fathers and grandfathers, or `analogue natives,’’’ Park said.

A recent government survey found that 50.3 percent of three-to five-year-olds log onto the Internet at least once a month. They were found to have first faced the Web at 3.2 years on average.

Many Korean preschoolers are also casual users of handsets. KTF, the country’s No. 2 wireless carrier, runs a charging system customized for four-year-old kids.

There’s also a staggering amount of the Korean population using CyWorld:

In South Korea, there’s a term for what Kwon is: a Cyholic. It’s hardly an unusual affliction. There are 18 million Cyworld members – that’s more than a third of the country’s entire population. And 90 percent of all Koreans in their 20s, like Kwon, have signed up.

Now, teens and 20’s I expect to be highly connected, their social development has fully bloomed by that age. Even tweens ages 8 – 12 I could see desiring digital entertainment and connectivity. But pre-schoolers age 3 is a completely different story. There’s a downside to this too, documented in Telegraph.co.uk in September 2006 — Modern life leads to more depression among children. The Telegraph article was signed by about 100 experts in early childhood development, heath, public policy academic researchers. Here’s a an excerpt:

Since children’s brains are still developing, they cannot adjust – as full-grown adults can – to the effects of ever more rapid technological and cultural change. They still need what developing human beings have always needed, including real food (as opposed to processed “junk”), real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in and regular interaction with the real-life significant adults in their lives.

They also need time. In a fast-moving hyper-competitive culture, today’s children are expected to cope with an ever-earlier start to formal schoolwork and an overly academic test-driven primary curriculum. They are pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past.

Obviously there’s some real issues here with technology usage and it’s relationship to safe, early childhood development. The Korea Times article boasts of rapid technological development among youth, creating “the next generation of technological gurus” and high-tech business leaders. While progress is exciting, biologically emerging markets (i.e. – preschoolers!) should be balanced by a concern for children’s developing minds and what they can realistically adjust to as they grow socially.

“Digital natives are thinking, acting and reacting much differently from how we did, mainly because their childhoods are in large part shaped by technology,’’ Park said.“Their lifestyle, formed in line with newest technologies, can be a huge asset for this nation. They will grow up to become developers of futuristic techniques or consumers to help the related markets take root,’’ he said.

Do we want economists and market makers setting the agenda for how digitized a next generation of toddlers lives become? How can we balance the bursting technology industry growth among younger and younger users, yet do so in a way that encourages offline activities and real-world, human connections?

I have a feeling the same thing was said when the telephone and “after school TV” reached mass saturation among tweens and teenagers. But as designers of digital experiences for young and old, how are we fostering responsible experiences that are friendly to early childhood development, and parent-mediation? Designing for a child must also design for the parent of that child. It’s a new level of dual-user constituency to design for, simplify, and positively affect.