Topic 1: Reflections

For this week’s topic, we were given the task of explaining the concepts Digital ‘visitors’ and ‘residents’. These terms originally seemed new to me until I realized that they were developments which had been made to the infamous terms of Digital ‘natives’ and ‘immigrants’ popularized by Prensky. When reading over Prensky’s original definitions, it is easy to assume that online activity can be determined by your age and whether you fall within the digital ‘natives’ category. However, looking into White & Cornu’s definitions, this highlighted how online activity is not necessarily determined by age.

By reflecting on my own activities, and from reading the comments left on my post, it is clear that rather than us fitting solely into one category of ‘visitors’ or ‘residents’, most of us tend to shift between the two. I do believe that it is more likely for us to satisfy the ‘resident’ criteria, as with modern technology enabling mobile access to the internet on a more consistent basis, as I mentioned in my post, it is easier for us to reside online.

Nevertheless, after reading Shriya’s blog, it was interesting to see the way that she has linked online activity to the role in which it plays in education. This link is very important as, by reflecting on my educational experience, I remember that technology was used but on a minimal scale in comparison to the way in which it is now. As technology advances, the more it is used within education, thus the younger generation have an increased amount of exposure to it from a young age. Therefore, the role in which technology plays in education is an essential element to consider and contributes to reasons why Prensky’s idea of ‘natives’ and ‘immigrants’ cannot completely be dismissed.

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Topic 1: Digital ‘Residents’ and Digital ‘Visitors’

Whilst describing the Internet activity of cyberspace users, Prensky advanced the terms ‘digital natives’ and ‘immigrants’.[1] Digital natives has become widely appreciated as referring to those born after 1980 and who have subsequently grown up in a world where the Internet and digital environment is an ordinary part of their day.[2] Digital immigrants however refers to those who are slightly older than the generation born post-1980 and who, unlike digital natives, have not grown up surrounded by digital technologies and have therefore had to become accustomed to the digital world. Nevertheless, although these terms provide the foundations for understanding individuals’ online activity, developments have since been made which challenge these simplistic classifications.

Digital Residents is a term which refers to individuals who ‘live a percentage of their life online’. Residents view the digital environment as a place which enables them to think and grow and so are happy to frequently share information about themselves online, resulting in their online and offline lives lacking differentiation. With more services being offered online and an increased amount of locations that offer Wi-FI access, individuals are able to spend more time online which has resulted in a reported 79% of adults using social networks everyday. Therefore this has aided the ability for most internet users to fit the Resident classification.

Digital Visitors on the other hand, is a term which refers to those who ‘use the web as a tool in an organized manner whenever the need arises’.[3] Visitors set aside a specific time to go on the Internet and use it for specific reason and most importantly, they are sceptical about revealing too much about themselves online. Therefore, unlike Residents they do not participate in online culture in the same manner. This is explained in more detail in the video featured below.

However unlike Prensky’s theory, although total extremes of digital Residents and Visitors can exist, White and Cornu identify that individuals move around ‘the box’ (as depicted below) as they can sometimes exhibit traits of both.

Some reflections…

After evaluating my online activity through the self test form, I have realized that my online activity does not fit the criterion put forward by Prensky, but instead reinforces the Visitors and Residents theory. For instance, my scepticism to revealing too much about myself definitely resonates with the traits that are displayed by Visitors, but I am not completely closed off to social networking to fit solely in this category. Therefore, as I tend to move in between the ‘Residents’ and ‘Visitors‘, which I am sure many other Internet users do, this supports the classification purported by White and Cornu.

REFERENCES

[1] Marc Prensky, ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’< http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf > accessed 8^th February 2016.

David S White and Alison Le Cornu, ‘Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement’, (2011) First Monday 16(9).

[2] Michael Thomas, ‘Deconstructing Digital Natives: young people, technology and the new literacies’, (London, Routledge 2011).

[3] David White (2008) < http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/> accessed 8^th February 2016.