Introduction

There are many competing terms for younger people with high digital competencies and immersion, including digital natives, the net generation and Generation Z based on Strauss and Howe’s generational theory. The understanding digital events project sought to examine personal experience of everyday digital tasks – paying a bill online, playing a digital game, receiving smartphone messages. Digital fluency can be learned, and this can have quite an impact on the experiences of such ‘digital natives’. As Internet use has become more ubiquitous within our daily lives, the focus has shifted to examine the differences in individuals’ skills, recognising that technical competency can have an impact on the outcomes of the use of digital tools. Digital interfaces, such as the smartphone touchscreen, have the unique property of being interactive symbologies where virtual tasks are driven by precise physical gestures, directed by mental will, and by sociological forces. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.