ARE you a Digital Native? You are, if you tend to wake up in the morning at the sound of your mobile phone’s alarm, if you get ready for school or college but not before putting on some digital music, or if you call or SMS your friend to find out the exact spot where everyone will hang out before class starts.

If not, you must be a Digital Immigrant, someone who tends to read the manual before using a certain gadget, someone who does not feel that acquaintances met through Friendster or Facebook is as important as friends met in school or through work, or someone who accesses news through the Internet just as often as through the television or newspaper.

If you are neither a Digital Native nor a Digital Immigrant, then you must be an Analogue, who is, well, not Digital.

The terms “Digital Native” and “Digital Immigrant” are coined by Marc Prensky, a visionary in education and learning.

Ericsson Malaysia’s regional manager, Consumer Lab Southeast Asia Vishnu Singh elaborated at the recent Ericsson Media Summit 2008 that Digital Natives are people who are born into digital technology. They are used to the instantaneity of hypertext, downloaded music, phone in their pocket on 24x7, and thrive on connectivity anytime, anywhere.

According to Vishnu, Digital Natives will soon enter the workforce and become income earners, so telecommunications and media providers have an opportunity to offer more services to further excite the youth market.

While there is much potential in the Digital Native market, the Digital Immigrant market, comprising thirtysomething income earners who are appreciative of communications technology as an enhancement to their daily lives, is just as exciting for telecommunications and media providers, Vishnu pointed out.

As someone nearing the big three-zero, this writer could not help but ask, is there a chance that there are thirtysomethings out there who are more of a Digital Native than a Digital Immigrant? Vishu had a smile on his face when he said, “No”.

The year you were born is the determining factor, according to him, which seems to make sense since you cannot change the fact that thirtysomethings are people who know how to use a payphone because they were there when such technology was hip.

Somewhat in denial, I admitted that, unlike a Digital Immigrant, I spend as much as an average of 3,500 hours on Facebook, or deal with 250,000 e-mails, instant messages and SMSes, just like a typical 21-year-old would, as estimated by Ericsson Consumer Lab.

And I do wake up to a ringing tone set as alarm on my mobile, hate manuals, and want connectivity anytime, anywhere.

According to Ericsson Malaysia’s president and country manager Krishna Kumar, telecommunications and media providers need to understand the consumers and the kind of services they want, and consumers need to be clear in what they want and let the providers know.

At the risk of being labelled a Digital Immigrant, I explore the options before me. I can simply accept the fact that market researchers will look at me as a Digital Immigrant, or be active in delivering my views on what kind of services that I want from my telecommunications and media providers.

In fact, I’d rather be labelled as an individual with a specific set of needs that is unique from everyone else. In other words, even if I am not a typical 21-year-old but still want Flickr on my mobile phone and Rihanna’s Umbrella as my caller ringtone, then so be it. If Web 1.0 was about technology driving services, and Web 2.0 puts consumers in the driving seat, then in my humble opinion, Web 3.0 might just be about individuals getting exactly what they need.

I will leave you imagining what it would be like to have only the channels you love on your Astro subscription and paying for just that.