Topic 1: SUMMARY – Digital ‘Residents’ and ‘Visitors’
The discussion on the digital ‘resident’ and ‘visitor’ has been enlightening. It has increased my understanding of some of the debates surrounding who fully utilises and benefits from technology. Although difficult to quantify, Tamara Manton’s citation of White’s Matrix was particularly helpful in simplifying the question of exactly who is a digital resident and visitor. It certainly furthered my understanding of it!
Although the topic seems relatively straight forward, it is in fact much deeper than I previously thought. The various studies and readings I found during the initial blog posting, supported some of my theories relating to whether or not people become residents because of professional life, for example. Because of the difficulty in categorising people, from my research it became clear that the topic is not so black and white, but open to debate and opinion.
During my readings of other blog posts, Tatiana Sieff’s image from Vojvodic of the baby wired in the womb, was particularly significant as it addresses some of the fears people have as to how great the role technology will be in our lives. This is why the debate is open to opinion, as some would argue technology does not play such a large role, whilst some would state it does.
Until this blog debate, I would have never previously considered categorising people as ‘residents’ or ‘visitors’, but I can now envisage a world in the future where all generations will be born digital residents. As written by Chalabi (2013) in The Guardian, 83% of households in the UK had an internet connection in 2013. I find the notion of this figure being 100% fascinating!
Chalabi, M. (2013, August 8). 36m Brits use the internet every day – but what are they all doing? Retrieved February 10, 2015, from http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fnews%2Fdatablog%2F2013%2Faug%2F08%2F36-million-brits-internet-every-day-habits-use
Word Count: 272
Comment links:
https://tatianasieff.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/was-i-born-online/comment-page-1/#comment-1
