This week's Economist quarterly technology supplement asks, "is it really helpful to talk about a new generation of ‘digital natives' who have grown up with the Internet?" Given that I've written a book on the subject, you can count me in the "yes" column on that, but the Economist article raises a few points that deserve a response.

To set up the premise, the article quotes Adam Palfrey and Urs Gasser, co-authors of 2009's Born Digital, on one of the standard Net Generation tropes: "Unlike those of us a shade older, this new generation didn't have to relearn anything to live lives of digital immersion. They learned in digital the first time around." That's what I call the "soft" or social argument for the Net Generation - one which I largely agree with because it has a fair amount of explanatory power, at least in the areas of professional and "creative class" work.

In the next paragraph, we hear from Marc Prensky, the behavioral psychologist and educational theorist who suggests that exposure to digital media was actually changing the brain patterns of today's young people. This evolution, Prensky argues, requires a radical re-thinking of our entire educational system, which is no longer appropriate for people whose orientation is toward multitasking rather than linear learning. Prensky embodies the "hard" argument for the Net Generation: changes which go beyond socialization and suggest that digital natives are in fact a breed apart from their elders.

Last week, I was on a con-call with Don Tapscott, one of the major contributors to this whole debate, who cited Prensky's findings as fact. I'm not a behavioral psychologist or a neuroscientist, so I do not feel qualified to evaluate this particular argument, but I do know that it is not a matter of universal agreement. Absent the evidence, it sounds like overstatement. To a skeptical, conservative publication like the Economist, it is a matador's red cape, or a flashing red alarm light on their bullshit detector.

That said, conflating the hard and soft arguments for the Net Generation as the Economist does is a bit misleading, because the two point to different sets of implications. Advocates for the soft argument, like myself, believe that Net Geners function better if given the opportunity to express their talents for collaboration, global thinking, and "blended approaches" (basically, ignoring old barriers and boundaries made obsolete by digital technology) - not that whole systems need to be rewired to accommodate their requirements. Organizations that want to take advantage of Net Generation strengths should think about how to do that, and over the long run, organizations created by Net Geners are likely to have some competitive advantages against those burdened with pre-digital legacies. This is not an iron law of nature; it's just good advice and prudent forecasting.

If Prensky is right about fundamental changes to neurochemistry, however, then digital natives are not "backward compatible" with pre-existing modes of information and communication delivery, whether in the education system, in the workplace, or in society in general. The only possible solution is wholesale change. That seems a bit dramatic. While it's true that linear and hierarchical systems sometimes bore or frustrate NetGeners, I see no evidence that they lack the ability to understand or function within those systems when they have to, though it's a waste to make them conform if there are some useful changes that could be made. It seems to me that the Economist has a point in rejecting strong medicine when the diagnosis has not yet been confirmed. But that is not a reason to dismiss the reasonable claims of the less strident position.

The second mistake the Economist piece makes is that it conflates the Millennial generation -a social/historical designation - with the Net Generation, which is the product of exposure to technology. Everyone born 1980-2000 is a Millennial, in that they experienced the same basic set of cultural inputs at various points in their early development. They learned to trust (and distrust) various institutions, they internalized the values of the education system at the time they went through it, they experienced the anxieties of the Baby Boomer generation from the perspective of children watching their parents, and so on. It is not preposterous to assume that all of this had a measurable effect, just as the socialization process was apparent in every previous generation. The sociologists Neil Howe and the late William Strauss made a convincing argument for this in several books, notably the prescient Generations: A History of America's Future 1584-2069 and Millennials Rising.

The Net Generation, by my reckoning if not by Tapscott's, is a subset of Millennials: those who became immersed through exposure to technology, and changed their way of thinking because of it. Because of my work studying blue collar Millennials and the digital divide from various angles, I am very wary of imputing the "tech-savvy" label to all young people. The farthest I'd go is "tech-aware," in that you'd have to be pretty far removed from popular culture to be ignorant of the existence of digital culture.

The Economist quotes NetGen skeptic Siva Vaidhyanathan as saying, "This is essentially a wrong-headed argument that assumes that our kids have some special path to the witchcraft of ‘digital awareness' and that they understand something that we, teachers, don't-and we have to catch up with them."

Perhaps, but the wrong-headedness of the argument comes from its strong claim to universality. Tech-awareness among Millennials is unevenly distributed. Those on the outside, whether for socio-economic or geographic reasons, have no "special path" other than a slightly different cultural framework. Others most obviously do have some unique insights, just as a child raised in a multilingual environment will grow up speaking both languages without an accent. The Economist makes it seem that Vaidhyanathan is suggesting elders have nothing to learn from any of our kids when it comes to technology. I doubt he means that, as it is contrary to most people's ordinary experience.

Finally, the Economist scores some easy points on the "not everyone fits the stereotype" argument. Well, yes: generalizations are general. They don't always fit. And is some abuse of the terminology going on to ennoble rather routine youthful behaviors? Yes, there are "slacktivists" and bandwagon jumpers and free-riders who do not deserve to be dignified through association with the affirmative traits of the Net Generation. There were also plenty of Boomers who weren't at Woodstock and didn't care about the social issues of their time. These are lazy observations and don't prove or disprove anything.

What I and other Net Gen advocates argue is that the top end of truly savvy NetGeners has quite a bit to teach us. This is apparent to me from the work I've done on organizations developed according to Net Generation principles, in parts of the world where there are very few functioning alternatives. The approaches taken by these organizations and the individuals responsible for them would simply not be possible without the kind of perspectives that the most talented Net Geners uniquely bring to their work and social engagement.