Before I began the MALAT program, I knew that some people where more comfortable using the computer and venturing online than others.  I am only a few weeks into the program and I have learned that there are visitors and residents, digital natives and immigrants (White & Le Cornu, 2011), and environments that work for each group and that each group does not have hard borders, meaning that one can move between the groups with ease.  Hargittai and Walejko note, “some people may only turn to digital media on occasion and for only a few activities, others may make it an integral part of their lives” (Hargittai & Walejko, 2008, p. 240), recently I experienced a blending of the groups in a surprising way.  I was telling a colleague that I was encouraging my dad to adopt an elderly cat by sending him photos and text messages in the voice of the cat.  As I was sending more messages, my dad was starting to give-in to the idea of bringing home the cat.  After I told the entire story, my colleague responded with comments like “yes, I saw that!  Your poor dad did not have a chance!”, which, if I had sent the messages in an open platform (i.e. social media), her response would have been accurate; however, each message was a text and only my dad and I saw them.  After reading articles about digital presences, I believe that my colleague is an online resident which caused her to default to the thought that, since we are connected on social media, she had witnessed the exchange regarding adopting the cat, when she was, actually, hearing about it for the first time in that moment.

This experience made me realize that while we are able to turn to a digital environment to interact with others, it is important to realize that not all exchanges are visible to our entire network and when we react to something, it is important to know where we fit in the original exchange.  The conversation allowed me to recognize when someone is more of a resident online than I am; which, is something that I was unaware of prior to being in this program.

References

Hargittai, E. & Walejko, G. (2008) The Participation Divide: Content creation and sharing in the digital age, Information, Communication & Society, 11:2, 239-256, DOI: 10.1080/13691180801946150

White, D., & Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9). doi:https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i9.3171