Is "Generation Digital" Real?

Siva Vaidhyanathan writes about the digital generation:

For a while I have been recoiling at all that talk about how young people today are "born digital" or are part of some special or distinct experiential universe that grants them special prowess or powers and blinds them to other things (like, say, books).

I don't buy it for one minute.

Partly, I resist such talk because I don't think that "generations" are meaningful social categories. [...]

Invoking generations invariably demands an exclusive focus on people of wealth and means, because they get to express their preferences (for music, clothes, electronics, etc.) in ways that are easy to count. It always excludes immigrants, not to mention those born beyond the borders of the United States. And it excludes anyone on the margins of mainstream consumer or cultural behavior.

In the case of the "digital generation," the class, ethnic, and geographic biases could not be more obvious.

And besides, I have spent more than a decade in the constant company of people 18 to 23 years old. The faces change. The age range does not. I have to report that the levels of comfort with, understanding of, and dexterity with digital technology varies greatly in every class. Yet it has not changed in more than 10 years. Every class has a handful of people with amazing skills and a large number of people who can't stand computers at all. A few every year lack mobile phones. Many can't afford any gizmos and resent assignments that demand digital work. Most use Facebook and Myspace because they are easy, not because they are powerful (which, of course, they are not).

Link: The problem with "digital natives"...

More here and see also a post at Henry Jenkins's blog: Reconsidering Digital Immigrants.

I agree with Siva's points.  I'm sure there are some real differences, on average, in the psychology/behavior between generations, but too often these terms are thrown around based just on cliches and gross assumptions.  And when it's not Generation Digital it's Generation Old and Terrified of Technology.

Today I noticed a "Teach Yourself" book called Computing for the over 50s.  It apparently "takes the terror out of technology."  Could they get any more condescending?  And what's with the bear?