It was argued that three kinds of teachers were most likely to utilise the Internet in their teaching practices: 1) younger teachers, 2) teachers in leading positions and 3) “teachers with constructivist pedagogies” (Becker, 1999, p. 30). The significance of the age factor, Becker (1999) added, might progressively become less important because the fact that teachers of the future grow up in a world of technology integration would prove to be a considerable advantage. Prensky (2001) claimed that the pace of the appearance and the integration of technology could even be seen as a singularity. At the dawn of the new millennium, scholars turned towards the generations then growing up in this singularity and began referring to them as the Net generation (Tapscott, 1999) or the millennials (Howe & Strauss, 2000).

In reflection to the worsening numbers of the contemporary US educational attainment reports, Prensky (2001) reflected on the gap technology opened between teachers and the learners by coining the oft cited terms; digital natives, and digital immigrants. Prensky (2001) reasoned that the learners had evidently been changing, but the educational system did not follow these changes. Digital natives, i.e., the students’ generations, typically like receiving information as fast as possible, prefer multitasking as opposed to focusing on a singular task at hand and much rather look for visual and holistic representations than engage in large amounts of textual data. Digital immigrants, i.e., the instructors, utilise their routines in teaching the learners, and they do not believe that learning can be successfully supported by technologies because they had never experienced learning with technology. Prensky (2001) argued it was unlikely that digital natives would change and miraculously started preferring the learning and teaching styles that had preceded the digital era, thus it is only logical that teaching and instruction had to change. Prensky (2001) also added that change did not have to start from point zero, but teaching methodology needed to start including digital possibilities and outdated teaching routines had to be freshened. By explicitly pointing out that ICT inclusion is an extension of already existing teaching methods, Prensky (2001) already pinpointed the main governing principle later encompassed in integration theories.

The classic and arguably overgeneralised juxtaposition of digital natives and immigrants soon met widespread criticism because empirical evidence suggested that the age factor in itself is not an accurate predictor for teachers’ technology inclusion (Bayne & Ross, 2011; Drent & Meelissen, 2008; Mossberger et al., 2008) and many more independent variables also play important roles in the equation. Mossberger and colleagues (2008) suggested using the term digital citizenship as opposed to immigrants and natives to illustrate that with effort and dedication, individuals irrespective of their age are able to learn about digital technologies. Bebell and colleagues (2004, p. 51) argued for the necessity of utilising multiple measures when researching teachers’ technology use and isolated several independent dimensions of technology use in the classroom: preparation, professional emailing, delivering instructions, accommodation, student use, student products and grading. This unveiled that the building blocks of ICT use in classrooms can be separated, but all of them show correlations with the others.

While the age factor is still reported in the discourse to be a barrier of integration (Drent & Meelissen, 2008; Kler, 2014), it rather reflects certain teachers’ deep-rooted beliefs about technology and their unwillingness to change their instructional practices. In a study conducted by Benini and Murray (2014), it was found that even in highly textbook-based schools teachers found the use of ICT important, but this was not realised in the classroom setting, some teachers even explicitly claiming that ICT use is preferable, but not in the classrooms. It was also found that experience with and attitudes towards digital devices are much greater indicators of inclusion than age, and similar to teachers, students should not be generally regarded as all tech savvies either (Benini & Murray, 2014) because their attitudes and digital competences also showed many individual differences.

To explore what individual differences account for inclusion, Monacis and colleagues (2019) conducted a questionnaire study in the Italian primary school context. The researchers deliberately sampled 201 teachers who had less than 20, and 173 who had more than 20 years of teaching experience. The findings suggested that teachers with 20+ years of teaching experience expressed lesser likelihood to change their existing teaching practices, but teachers with less experience had generally positive attitudes towards ICT as well as strongly believed that integration facilitated better student learning (Monacis et al., 2019). In this respect, age might be regarded as a predicting factor of positive or negative beliefs, but it is rather about being exposed to technology that predicts inclusion. In a sense, younger teachers had more access to technology, and this involuntarily resulted in more invested time and effort into learning about the devices. Therefore, more experienced teachers need both support and techno-pedagogical perspectives, while teacher education and training programmes need to react faster to incorporate digital possibilities into teaching contexts (Monacis et al., 2019).

The role of gender as an enabler or barrier is much rather researched from the learners’ perspective. Studies confirm that males tend to be more confident in using ICT devices, especially for gaming and other recreational purposes, while females rather engage in social networking activities (Korlat et al., 2021). In an exploratory focus group interview study carried out in the US context involving parents and secondary school teachers, Sáinz and colleagues (2012) collected parents’ and teachers’ ideas of choosing a profession in ICT. The participants included an equal number of females and males. The results showed that both genders recognised the field of ICT as male-driven but expressed that it was the social environment that can have a major effect on career choices (Sáinz et al., 2012). As career choices are much rather seen influenced by family attitudes and role models, most recent studies accentuate that gender-based categorisations might paint an overgeneralised picture and it is rather the individual’s self-concept that determines what assumptions they hold towards digital learning (Korlat et al., 2021; Morgan et al., 2021). Similar to the dichotomy of digital natives and digital immigrants, technology-inclusive learning differences are rather seen shaped by the individual’s immediate support system and learning environment (Korlat et al., 2021; Morgan et al., 2021).

Nonetheless, the literature seems to confirm that certain individual differences can be isolated as predictors or barriers of teachers’ ICT inclusion, but these individual differences such as age, willingness, beliefs, and gender should not be addressed too generally and should always reflect the research context (Csizér & Albert, 2020). Younger teachers’ more positive beliefs and higher willingness to include technology in their teaching practices originate from their advantage of growing up in an integrated world, but regardless of age, with similar invested effort, everyone can choose to become a digital citizen. Factors such as individual and institutional level support also play key roles in more experienced teachers’ successes with becoming digital citizens. Finally, while the field of ICT is male-dominated, and gender differences are traceable when focusing on overall tendencies, researchers argue that it is the individual’s self-concept that determines what attitudes one displays towards technology-inclusive learning, and that this self-concept is highly influenced by the immediate environment of the individual, most importantly by family attitudes and chosen role models.