“I don’t necessarily like to use this term in public, but … we have a generation of digital natives who are also digital doofuses,” said Don Leu, in a 2006 interview about his digital literacy research findings. “They are natives when it comes to video, social networks, and texting, but they are doofuses when it comes to information. They do not know how to locate information or evaluate information, and they do not know how to communicate information in a richer context beyond text messaging.”

In a recent study, Don Leu found that with these computers, 7th graders in Maine were much better at researching online than students in Connecticut. This is good news, he says, and it shows that Maine students have a step up in digital literacy.