The concept of digital “visitors” and “residents”.
The model for seeing online users as either “visitors” or “residents” was developed from Prensky’s Digital natives and Immigrants model. This model saw people that had been brought up with/using the web classed as Natives because they could use and understand it easily. While older generations that did not grow up with it would find it difficult to adapt to it and thus they would feel like they were trying to speak a second language.
Prensky’s model did have some criticism, the main problem was that it focused too much on age groups rather than an individuals skill and knowledge. From looking at the model you would see that everyone that had been brought up would know what they are doing so their would be less of an emphasis to teach the skills needed to use the web.
Residents are the users that would chose to be online. They will live out a portion of their lives online interacting with people through platforms like Facebook or Twitter, where they will have their own profiles and will actively post on other peoples content or make their own. For the most part they will leave their own presence even when they go offline. (White, 2011)
A visitor is a user that will use the web as a tool. They will log on do what they need to do and log off without leaving anything tied to them when they are away. An example of visitor activities would be searching for academic resources. In the end they do not feel that they need to express themselves with the online culture that a resident might. (White, 2011)
From these two user types, there was an expansion to the model. In this video, Dave White explains how each user can have all of their online activities placed down on this model. From following this I could expand on my own opinion of how I use the web. At this point in time my web life is rather residential and personal, where most of my activities are for my own personal community. However, I can see through this year it might change to a more institutional user style. This Blog for example is going to be for institutional use rather than personal. I will need to do more research for academic studies so I will be moving away from my personal searching and socializing over to a more residential institutional user.
References
Bennett, S. Maton, K. & Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘digital natives’ debate: a critical review of the evidence, British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(5), 775– 786.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the horizon,9(5), 1-6.
White, D. S., & Cornu, A. L. 2011. Not ‘Natives’ & ‘Immigrants’ but ‘Visitors’ & ‘Residents’. [ONLINE] Available at: http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/. [Accessed 07 February 15].
White, D. (2013) Just the Mapping [Online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK1Iw1XtwQ. [Accessed 07 February 15].
