Who are the digital natives? Bibliometric analysis of the research on digital natives in international scope (2013-2022)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14571/brajets.v18.n3.764-785Keywords:
Digital natives, Net generation, Generation Y, Millennials, YouthAbstract
Aiming to contribute to the knowledge on digital natives today, from international publications from the last decade, a bibliometric study was carried out on a total sample of 377 articles. These were collected from the Scopus indexing database, in the period 2013-2022, containing the root term “digital nativ*”, without region/country restriction, so to obtain the international panorama on the topic. The bibliometric analysis of the sample was carried out using the Biblioshiny interface of the Bibliometrix tool in the RStudio software. Additionally, a summary table was created containing the empirical contributions of the ten most cited articles in the sample. The results of the bibliometric analysis were: (1) the main themes related to digital natives researched in the period are “social networks”, “digital divide”, “information and communication technologies” and “education”; (2) most articles published about digital natives come from a few countries, most of which are high-income; (3) of the ten most cited articles, all of them researched in the educational field; (4) international research on digital natives showed an increasing trend in the period analyzed. The results obtained from the preparation of the summary table were: (1) there are universal characteristics in young people of this generation; (2) there are widespread features that have been proven not consistent; (3) there are new characteristics observed, compared to research from previous decades; (4) there are concepts, characteristics and analysis factors of key importance in the study and understanding of digital natives.
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