Digital Immigrants – Strangers

Abstract In social context, a stranger can be identified as one who is excluded from a group. This group can sometimes have only a few members, while in other cases it can consist of a whole nation or of an entire society. From a digital perspective, there are two kinds of citizens: first, those who are members of the digital information society. They are able to take part in social and public communication on several levels. Their habits often make life easier, and the pace they live their lives at is faster than of those before them. They are the digital natives. Second, there are those who designed the digital world, but ironically they are the ones who do not really understand how it works in practice. They are the digital immigrants, the strangers. In our study, our key point is that digital immigrants, who have been in this world longer than the so-called digital natives, are perceived as strangers as they are in many ways excluded from today’s digital information society. The rituals of their daily interaction, routine, and media consumption as well as information gathering differ from those who are “full members” of the information society.