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I am not stupid.  Honors degree in engineering.  MBA from a top school.  PhD in managment.  Fluent in French (English too, some say).  But when I try to operate the cable remote I feel pretty much like the bumbling idiot who teenagers roll their eyes at and sitcoms hold out as the typical clueless dad.

Fortunately John Palfrey and Urs Gasser have me figured out.  I’m an immigrant in this world.  Not a native.  The world I was born into no longer exists and, like an alien, I’ve found myself plunked down in foreign territory.  So of course I can’t be expected to feel perfectly at home here, regardless of whatever smarts I might possess.  In Born Digital:  Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, they explain the brave new world inhabited by those under 30 — the first generation born and raised completely wired.  Here we see a sociological portrait of this exotic tribe of young people and find they are both extraordinarily sophisticated and strangely narrow.  Good reading for those who would like to have some clue about the current generation of texters, tweeters, and bluetoothed bloggers.  order here