Topic 1
Topic 1: “Digital Residents” and “Digital Immigrants”
Question: Explain the concept of digital “visitors” and “residents” drawing upon your reading and your own online experiences to date in support of the points that you make.
Let’s start by outlining who a “digital resident” and “digital visitor” is. By breaking down these terms, by definition, a resident is someone who permanently lives in a particular place. We can derive this term into what essentially means that a digital resident is one who is continuously on the web. Digital residents use the web for more social and personal reasons i.e. sharing information on Facebook and/or Twitter; where even though a resident may log off, their opinions still remain. White’s (2008) idea of a digital resident certainly therefore deviates from Prensky’s (2001) “digital native” idea regarding the young generation being, as I call, “tech babies”; kids who have been nurtured into a world of technology. I would say that from a young age I have been a digital resident, especially since I am regularly on social medial to interact with friends. A prime example would be this blog, where my thoughts and findings on various topics will be displayed.
On the other end of the spectrum I give you… digital visitors. Again, by definition a visitor is someone who simply visits a place/person. This ‘visiting’ movement in the digital world depicts people who may occasionally use the web for a specific use i.e. to book a train ticket. We can see how this differs from a digital resident, since digital visitors use the web for specific tasks or goals. Comparing this term by White (2008), to that of Prensky’s (2001), a “digital immigrant” refers more to the older generation leaving traditional methods and techniques. According to Prensky (2001) Digital immigrants essentially aim to adapt and learn about technology. For instance traditionally, people would physically go to the bank to make a payment or review their statement. Nowadays people can just perform these same tasks in the comfort in their own home, on a laptop/tablet/mobile phone, while drinking a cup of tea and avoiding long queues.
To conclude, in my own experience I would say I lie in both spectrums of White’s (2008) residents and visitors’ typology, reasons being that though I am a digital resident, I do also surf the web for other uses i.e. food recipes. Nonetheless I feel as though White’s (2008) typology is a more modern and common in comparison to Prensky’s (2001) since we don’t expect a visitor to be less technically skilled than the resident. We do, however with a digital immigrant.
References
resident – definition of resident by The Free Dictionary. 2015. resident – definition of resident by The Free Dictionary. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.thefreedictionary.com/resident. [Accessed 08 February 2015].
Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement | White | First Monday. 2015. Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement | White | First Monday. [ONLINE] Available at:http://firstmonday.org/article/view/3171/3049%20https://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~tefko/Courses/Zadar/Readings/Selwyn%20dig%20natives,%20Aslib%20Proceedings%202009.pdf. [Accessed 08 February 2015].
