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Comment by taprun | Hacker News Reader

The title is very misleading and an example of linkbait. It should be something like "Can Employers Request Traits That Older Folks Are Unlikely to Possess?"

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Change "Unlikely" to "Cannot" and that sounds about right. You cannot become native in something after the critical period is over, no matter how good you are(this is by definition). The best you can be is "fluent" if you miss the critical period.

For example, if you ask for a native English speaker to write a newsletter, Joseph Conrad would not fit the bill(since he started learning English at 21 years of age), even though in terms of talent he would surely be leagues beyond any random native English speaker.

You're claiming there is a skill set or intuitive understanding that can't be learned once you pass age 21?

I think the point that the parent post is making is that while one can learn to be proficient in a certain topic, he/she can't call it "native" unless it is in fact, "native" in definition.

It's as much as you can't claim native to a specific country if you are not born/raised in that country.

No, that is not my point. My point is that the term "native" has a very narrow scope where, by definition, the skills must be learned or acquired from birth(and certainly before the critical period[7-10 years old] is over). In this sense, for example, many people can be native English speakers, but it means nothing with regards to their actual skill of speaking or writing English. That's my problem with asking for "digital natives". "Fluency" would be a better term to use, because it doesn't differentiate on when a person learned a skill, just their talent regarding that skill.

Not really. Think what you will of the merits of the article, but it makes specific reference in the opening sentence to the fact that "digital native has been used to refer to a member of the younger generation weaned on the web and immersed in the language of digital technology," and the example it signifies is an employer ignoring older applicants because of their age rather than their skillsets.

I'm not sure how I feel about the issue, but it seems fairly appropriately titled and asking a narrow question. If I clicked on an article with the title you suggest, I'd expect a discussion of broader issues – manual labor's physical requirements as job criteria, for example.

Why not just say "digitally fluent", or something like that? Discriminating against someone based solely on the year they were born seems illegal(IANAL) and just plain wrong.

Although you have to wonder how places with right laws compete with places with wrong laws. Oh I know. You make another law to fix that?

Not quite sure what your point is. What are these "right laws" and "wrong laws"?

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