[Photo by Daniel Gonzalez on Unsplash]
This self-reflective exercise on my digital presence was an interesting experience for me, since it forced me to critically reflect on my digital footprint and how my use of technology impacts my digital identity. I find the resident-visitor typology, developed by White & LeCornu (2011), very fitting in today’s social media-driven society, since we spend most of our time online in virtual communities, contributing and learning from them, and it shapes our worldview and who we are.
I have to confess that I personally tend to not be a very active social media user, and therefore tend to live more on a visitor side of this typology. I can relate to those who suffer from social media anxiety, since I find social media can be sometimes quite overwhelming due to the variability of the audience, as well as privacy considerations.
In my map, I have used the size of the circles to reflect on my engagement time with each tool, since I find a time factor being an important element. Another important consideration for me is where our community/tribe is, and how a sense of belonging “to a community which is located in the virtual” (White & LeCornu, 2011), impacts our engagement and digital identity.
I have come to an understanding that my role as a resident and a visitor is contextual and fluid, since it entails “some indication of the potential direction of travel” (White & LeCornu, 2011). Therefore, this map will change as my digital identity develops, and as the boundaries of my virtual community expand.
References:
White, D. S., & LeCornu, A. (2011). Visitors and residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9).
I too find social media daunting at times. Other people have these great posts that I don’t think I can create. I enjoy reading Facebook, the only social media site with which I am connected, and I do post. While I was reading White’s article, I got thinking about introverts and extroverts and how personalities plays a role in where someone lands on the visitor/resident scale.
A colleague asked if I would share my blog site with her and my response was that I would share it with her once I was happier with the site (this is when I referred to my site as Franken-blog). In White’s article he said “a blog post is as much an expression of identity as it a discussion of particular ideas” (White, 2011, para 27), my discuss about Franken-blog happened before I read the article, it’s fair to say that I agree with White!
Oops! I forgot the reference so here it is.
Reference
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.v16i9.3171v