digital native
digital native noun: a person who has grown up in an environment replete with digital interactions and ways of communicating, thought to increase difficulty with traditional nondigital teaching methods, work practices, etc.
Noun
digital native (plural digital natives)
- A person who has grown up in an environment replete with digital interactions and ways of communicating, thought to increase difficulty with traditional nondigital teaching methods, work practices, etc.
- This may potentially have a negative impact on the ultimate utility of this feedback method with present-day students who perceive themselves as ‘digital natives’.2017, Di Zou, James Lambert, “Feedback methods for student voice in the digital age”, in British Journal of Educational Technology, volume 48, number 5, page 1085
- [T]he overall profile of younger demographics (35% aged 21–30) implied that age should be considered in terms of the difference in AI familiarity between younger professionals, who expressed greater knowledge management skills regarding AI strategic knowledge management, which is a finding that...2026 January 2, Rania Ahmed El Garem, “HR digital transformation: enhancing human resource management through technology”, in Future Business Journal, volume 12, number 1, Springer, →DOI, →ISSN, page...
- Antonyms:
- digital immigrant, non-digital native
Antonyms of digital native
- digital immigrant
- non-digital native
- digital naive
Forms of digital native
| plural | digital natives |
|---|
Origin of digital native
Coined by education consultant Marc Prensky in 2001.
Words formed from digital native
Questions about digital native
- What does digital native mean?
- Digital native means a person who has grown up in an environment replete with digital interactions and ways of communicating, thought to increase difficulty with traditional nondigital teaching methods, work practices, etc.
- What part of speech is digital native?
- Digital native is a noun.
- What is the plural of digital native?
- The plural of digital native is digital natives.
Words near digital native in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: digital native (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-digital native.wav.
Cite this entry: “digital native.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/digital_native. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.