Some questions about creativity in digital age

Abstract

The subject of interest in this paper relates to the expression of creativity from childhood to adolescence in the society today, which many mirror as the digital age. Firstly, the paper presents a Developmental model of creativity developed in a research study focused on personal explicit theories of educational researchers. The model defines key descriptors and describes the manifestations of creativity from the preschool years all the way to the adulthood, when the individual joins the labour market. Secondly, the paper focuses onto the Digital Natives concept and attempts to describe the youngsters today taking into account research results from different settings. Thirdly, in the remaining part the manifestations of creativity from the model are associated with the characteristics of young people who were born in digital age in order to enhance understanding of creativity expression in digital age. Based on a thorough examination a list of questions and needed research studies about creativity of Digital Natives is presented, under the assumption that the digital media will only be further developed and their influence over the young generations will be even more copious. The concluding remark problematizes the notion on whether everybody may be regarded as creative in the digital age realm and if so how this changes the overall meaning of the concept of creativity?.

Predmet interesovanja u ovom radu je izražavanje kreativnosti u detinjstvu i mladosti u našem vremenu koje mnogi vide kao digitalno doba. U radu se prvo predstavlja razvojni model kreativnosti koji je dobijen u istraživačkoj studiji o ličnim eksplicitnim teorijama kreativnosti istraživača koji proučavaju obrazovanje. Model definiše ključne deskriptore i opisuje manifestacije kreativnosti od predškolskog uzrasta do odraslog doba kada osoba počinje da radi. U drugom delu rada opisana je savremena mlada generacija na osnovu rezultata istraživanja iz različitih sredina i koncept Digitalni urođenici. U trećem delu rada, manifestacije kreativnosti iz modela dovode se u vezu s karakteristikama mladih koji su rođeni u digitalnom dobu u nameri da se bolje razume kreativno izražavanje u digitalnom dobu. Napravljena je lista pitanja i potrebnih istraživačkih studija o kreativnosti digitalaca, s pretpostavkom da će se digitalne tehnologije dalje razvijati i da će njihov uticaj na mlade rasti. Završni komentar odnosi se na pitanje da li bi svako mogao biti kreativan u digitalnom dobu, a ako se to desi, da li se menja značenje pojma kreativnost.