I don't think it really greatly shapes the way you locate and consume information - and again, I'm comparing me (born 1966) with my kids (born 1994 and 1999).

I don't think it really greatly shapes the way you locate and consume information - and again, I'm comparing me (born 1966) with my kids (born 1994 and 1999). The feeling I have is that I always conceived of the world the way it is now, and it's only now catching up. Google wasn't earthshattering, although it's true that I do a lot less interlibrary loans. I keep up on news better, because I always found newspapers tl;dr (except for the comics page, and Web comics are better than anything on there nowadays anyway). I've taught my kids everything they know about the Internet, the only excepting being that my daughter researched Twitter for me and how to tweet from my phone - but only after I asked her to. And yeah, she found xkcd on her own - a year after I'd been following it. So I just don't buy it. Unless I'm a digital native, which is chronologically impossible, I'm forced to say that there are just some people who deal well with the Internet age and some who don't, and there is a generational skew due to exposure - but talking about "natives" vs. "immigrants" is boneheaded. Your larger point is spot-on. I have yet to interest either of my kids in programming, despite numerous attempts. For my son, 11, the computer is essentially a gaming and cartoon serving machine, and for my daughter, 15, it's a portal to her friends around the world and something to write her fan fiction and more serious work on, and find music. How it all works is just not interesting to either of them. (Darn it.)