You have probably heard the expression digital natives (as opposed to digital immigrants). According to Wikipedia, the Swedish equivalent would be nätets infödda and digital immigrants respectively. My personal view is that this is an expression so full of manure that, when it explodes, it will fill the internet with fertilizer.
Digital natives, those who are born and raised with the internet and therefore have acquired some sort of built-in, natural IT powers, in the same way that people from northern Sweden are supposedly more resistant to cold and mosquitoes (I am being ironic, we are not at all), is to me a completely foreign idea. All my experience, which is not the same as scientific evidence, tells me that this is not how things work. Just because you grew up with an iPad and played FarmVille during class does not automatically make you internet-savvy.
The very term Digital Natives is, in my eyes, completely backwards. The natives of the internet are, unlike everywhere else, supposed to be those who arrived when we had already been there for ten years? There was a place called the internet that was inhabited by nerds, marketers, and people who loved to chat (something they inherited from the discussion forums of the BBS era). All of a sudden, a large number of children showed up and started using the services these groups had built. Among other things, they dressed dolls on Stardoll, Googled Lego, and uploaded pictures on Snapchat. These late arrivals are then called natives. Ugh.
You can label things however you want, but what I really want to say is this: Growing up using today’s incredibly simple user interfaces does not mean that you are better at understanding what actually happens when you click a link or share an image. In my view, the truth is probably the opposite. You may be used to the harsh tone in Dota 2, but that does not mean you understand the difference between a distributed system like Skype and the admittedly well-functioning but messy server solution used by Counter-Strike.
Of course, not everyone born before the eighties has learned everything about the internet; that is simply the nature of things. Of course, there are people born after 1980 who do understand the internet. Most people, in both age groups, however, choose to settle for crushing candy in Sweden’s biggest one-hit wonder (more popular than Trance Dance, even). Being great at crushing candy does not mean you should get a fast track to top jobs at IT companies. We see right through you.
Now, let us remember that it is of course not you who are at fault. You did not coin the expression, and it is not your fault that municipal gurus around the country babble about digital natives. It is the very idea itself that is backwards. And I can promise you that you have the same opportunities to get a job, at least with us, based on your merits and skills, as everyone else who applies. Regardless of age.
