Topic 1: Reflection

The terms digital “resident” and “visitor” were new concepts for me, before I had started this module. However as I delved into these areas, my understanding grew which allowed me to associate myself with a personal perspective on both sides.

Pretsky’s initial concepts first sparked my curiosity on the differentiation and classification of people and their online behaviour in the digital world, because quite simply, I had never thought about it before. This led me to read papers written by White, where he explored  the concept of a continuum, identifying that people can place themselves anywhere in between a digital resident or visitor.

Deepbim agreed that this concept is important in identifying online presence, as an individuals behaviour can be influenced depending on what they are doing and when. However this led me to consider, if you’re categorising yourself on an hourly basis, are you not simply a resident or visitor? An either, or categorization? This question was instigated after Deepbim mentioned in her blog about being a resident at a specific time of her day because of her usage of social profiles, and then a visitor for academic purposes at a different time of that day.

Andysug’s comment on my blog caught my attention with regards to this as he pointed out that LinkedIn was one of the only social platforms that you could place yourself anywhere on the scale depending on how you use that site specifically. You can join discussion groups and leave big online traces, or leave a fairly small trace by just keeping your profile updated and keeping on the lookout for jobs to apply to. With Facebook this isn’t the case as you’ll either end up with no friends and nothing to look at, if you dont maintain a social network, thus online traces.