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.
The concept of Digital “Residents” and Digital “Visitors” was developed in order to identify people in regards to their online presence as an improvement to replace the outdated concept of Prensky’s digital “Natives” and “Immigrants” that make assumption based on age. (White, 2008)
Digital Visitor
A digital visitor is an individual who understands the web, but only see it as one of the many tools they can use to achieve certain goals, as they utilize it occasionally or only when a need arises. They are unlikely to build or maintain their online profiles, as they place very little value in belonging and socializing online. Thus, leading to their anonymous characteristics. (White & Le Cornu, 2011)
Digital Resident
A digital resident is an individual who values the Web and all the practical tools it has to offer, such as internet banking, online shopping and a place to develop their digital identity. They spend many hours online expressing opinions, sharing information about their life and connecting with others, as they believe this is where relationships can be formed and extended. Many achieve this through enhancing their online presence on a regular basis and ‘living’ through their professional and social networks. (White & Le Cornu, 2011)
Lets have a short exercise, using the diagram below that shows the continuum of the Digital Visitor/Residents scale. Where would you fall?
My own online experience.
I was able to reflect upon my own engagement within the digital environment after coming across the video presented by (White, 2013). Through the guidance by the video, I believe my online mapping as shown in the diagram below would fall closer to the digital resident.
Making full use of social networks on a regular basis, where I share my personal opinions and experiences; this follows some of the characteristics of a digital resident shared by (White & Le Cornu, 2011) such as constantly developing my presence online. However, I will need to work on being more “Digital Resident” in my professional life, indicating the strong need for me to interact more on Linkedin rather than just using it as a static page for my curriculum vitae (CV) and engaging with more people in my field of interest by marketing and advertising through Twitter and LinkedIn using hashtag and blogs.
(Word count: 398)
References
White, D. (2008). Not ‘Natives’ & ‘Immigrants’ but ‘Visitors’ & ‘Residents’. [Blog] Tall Blog. Available at: http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2014].
White, D. (2013). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK1Iw1XtwQ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2014].
White, D. and Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement.First Monday, 16(9) [Accessed 27 Nov. 2014].
torws 
Hello Tor!
I agree very much with your concept regarding digital residents and visitors. Whereby Internet usage has nothing to do with age. I also like that there was an attempt to connect with readers.
The online mapping is very much similar to people our generation across the globe. Hence, how much must a person be active on social media to really be labelled a resident? Is there a possibility that being online is merely just a trend? In your opinion, are there any pros and cons to having social media connected to our professional life? After all, Linkedin is considered a social media platform.
Overall great post! I enjoyed it.
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Thanks for the response, you raise some interesting questions. Personally, I felt that there isn’t any need to clearly label one as a “digital resident” or “digital visitor”. It is important to keep in mind that the ‘digital visitors’ and ‘digital residents’ is a continuum and are not mutually exclusive in any sense.
In my opinion, I believe that pros than cons will all depend on the users itself. It is difficult to understand how to effectively use the platform but I believe that if we are proactive, and follow groups/businesses of interest, whilst partaking in discussions, we are taking the right steps towards building our professional online profiles.
However, it is important for the users to understand the use of each platform to be able to control the information share online in order to project the correct digital image.
Thanks again, and I look forward to reading your future entries!
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