The advantages of NOT being a digital native

People in their 20's and younger are the so-called "digital natives", those who have grown up in the tech age and for whom "being digital" (as Negroponte put it) is simply part of their nature. Those of us "of a certain age" look at digital natives with a combination of wonder and skepticism, amazed at their physical skills of digital multitasking while remaining dubious of their actual accomplishments. I have taken well to tech for a person of "that certain age" who is not an innovator on the tech adoption bell curve but I am in no way envious of the digital natives. In fact, I think it should be the other way round. Being an "analog native" means that I recall well the pre-digital era and its difficulties - bulky, time consuming physical research methods, large, heavy media storage units (they were called LPs), overseas news coming in three days late on newspapers sent by air freight - ie, the bad old days. Every time I pick up my iPod Classic, which holds over 1100 of those LPs and CDs and is barely over half full, every time I access the Net and have instant news from all over the world in several languages (instead of listening to shortwave radio broadcasts in my room), every day when I see Moore's law mean that paperless can really mean paperless (and more room in storage closets) I am thankful for the ability to contrast the digital age with my analog upbringing. I am no cyber-utopian by any means; I prefer to think of myself as a tech connoisseur, one who appreciates the subtlety and grandeur of technological possibilities in the digital age. Sorry digital natives, but you can't do that - insufficient contrast. You just don't know how lucky you really are.