by cramber » Fri Dec 05, 2025 9:05 pm
If you didn’t grow up with smartphones and social media, then you, like many adults, are what experts call a digital immigrant. You’ve learned the technology, adapted to it, and continue to navigate it.
Your grandchildren, however, are digital natives—born into a world of touchscreens, autoplay videos, and influencers. They developed a natural skepticism and pattern-recognition ability early on, because ads are everywhere: inside games, between stories, inside YouTube videos, on TikTok, even disguised as “recommendations.”
This constant exposure gives them a kind of built-in filter. They instinctively scroll past sponsored posts, they know when a TikTok creator is being paid, and they can spot clickbait faster than most adults.