Hi, do you live in Digital Town?

We live in a place today where digital technology has become a norm and is simply integrated into our lives without much thinking about it. From the first moment we wake up, instead of having an alarm clock, our smartphone greets us with endless scrolling through Instagram, before realising we are going to be late for whatever we have planned. However, within society for some this norm is not natural to them. This is where the divide between the types of users of technology is created.

There are digital visitors, who understand the web and technology and use it for a “defined goal or task” (White and Le Cornu, 2011). Commonly, it is perceived that they are novice and have little experience in using the web. Although it is argued that this can be the case, it not entirely true. Digital Visitors may have not been born into technology and web, however being categorised as having little ability to use digital technology, as experienced users, may be an understatement (White and Le Cornu, 2011). Digital visitors are those that tend to stay away from digital interaction and have little or no online presence or identity within digital space. They regard social interaction in real life higher, than over online social media channels. In simple words, they are users and not members, as they do not actively contribute to the creation of digital space (White and Le Cornu, 2011).

Contrastingly, Prensky (2001) describes digital residents as those people in society that feel like they belong to the digital community. They spend a proportion of their life, both in their social and working life, using the digital space to interact with others, through the sharing and creation of digital information. They are comfortable members of this network and are painlessly attached to technology. The concept of digital residents does argue they have grown up within the digital space and have spent significant time building their online identity and presence (Harris, 2012), therefore commonly recognised residents tend to be the the younger generation, whereas visitors are the older generation within society.

Figure 1 (White and Le Cornu, 2011)

However, both concepts used within the digital space are not very static. Depending on the situation and purpose, many people within society, end up bouncing around acting as both visitors and residents.

Looking at both the concepts, I myself play more of the resident role within digital space rather than visitor (figure 1). I have grown up with technology from an early age and have felt that it came more naturally to myself than any of my family members. I have spent quite some time developing my presence through social media, however sometimes depending on the situation and purpose I use the web for, I could be seen as a visitor.

References

HARRIS, D. (2012). Digital Natives Revisited: developing digital wisdom in the modern university.elea, 9(2), p.173.

White, D. and Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement.First Monday, 16(9).

YouTube, (2016). Visitors and Residents. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/sPOG3iThmRI [Accessed 14 Feb. 2016].