The map below represents much of my internet usage, using the Visitor-Resident Typology introduced by White, D. & Le Cornu, A. (2011). I began by having my squares span a greater space, as illustrated by White (2013) in his YouTube video, but soon discovered that this would result in unreadable map that would not effectively tell a visual story. I chose to revise my design towards the style of a quadrant chart, or a scatter plot with four sections.
Mapping my internet usage offered a few insights, though I already know I am not much of an online contributor. If you take a moment to view my chart, youāll see that I am heavily weighted towards the Visitor side, and there is a strong separation between the personal and institutional space. I am wary of contributing due to its power to shape the way students, co-workers, employers, friends, and even strangers will perceive me. I want my contributions to the internet to be positive, without the potential to be misconstrued in the future. The downside is that this fear keeps me from contributing at all. It is also because I just donāt have the time.
View the interactive map on Whimsical (includes links and a colour legend)
Quadrant map of my online usage, based on the Visitor-Resident Typology.
References
White, D. S., & Le Cornu, A. (2011). View of Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9). https://firstmonday.org/article/view/3171/3049
White, D. (2013, September 13). Just the Mapping [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK1Iw1XtwQ
HI David, After seeing your map, I realized I forgot untapped and we have something in common, we must find time to discuss that website. I think that you being able to keep your personal and institutional space separate is a great thing, as many times they collied and interfere in our personal life. What do you feel is really holding you back? You said fear is holding you back, I think we all do have fear; however if we sit back and really think about it usually there is a underlying factor. I find my own down fall is not believing in myself and often times I find that people are intimidated with my knowledge in my field. Over the past year I have been really working on that. My boss quoted the following to me last summer. “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure”(Paulo Coelho) she told me to accomplish the un accomplishable you need to believe in yourself dream big, hence I applied for the MALAT program and realized the only person holding me back is me. I believe that you will find your way in the digital world, and create your own foot print that we will all be in awe of.
Haha. Untappd is definitely vital in a Visitor/Resident map!
Thanks for those thoughts and challenges. Part of my fear is due to my not being in academia for very long. I have never been all that involved in traditional education (homeschooled, followed by art school) and my background is in design and marketing. I’ve been teaching for two years, but I don’t feel that gives me the experience required to have a well-informed opinion. Maybe I do, but a large part of me says I need to be in this game a bit longer before I start offering my resources and expertise. That’s on the academic end of things. On the personal end, I just don’t like throwing my thoughts/feelings/opinions/advice out to the world. It feels like the wrong place for it. I love what I do, and I love being able to work with my colleagues as we work together to improve courses, but outside of the colleague area I just don’t feel very comfortable. I’ll get there someday. Hopefully.
To start, I love the title of this post, David. I must say that I don’t contribute much to the internet, myself, so that made me chuckle.
A lot of this has been a conscious decision based on not having had good experiences in seeing the dissolution of conversation on the internet. I remember back when it started being a “thing” in the early 90’s, just after the decline of the BBS, and it just seemed a much less cynical, more hopeful place where conversation didn’t dissolve into partisan arguments. And that has kept me from “contributing” in a meaningful way. I’ve struggled with understanding how, and where, to even have those sorts of conversations anymore.
I’m curious: In what ways would you like to contribute? In an ideal world, where would you do so? What do you see as your ideal “digital” representation of self and how would you convey this?
I don’t even know this for myself, so no worries if you don’t have an answer, either. š
I was still pretty young when the BBS was still a thing, but I remember using them in a very limited capacity as a kid. I never really contributed to the BBS community beyond playing text-base games so I canāt speak into that side. That cynical, biting, insaitiable need to be right appears to rule internet conversations, though I suppose Godwinās Law was around even back in the BBS days (https://www.wired.com/1994/10/godwin-if-2/).
Ho boy. My āideal ādigitalā representation.ā Thatās a big one, and Iām glad you are getting me thinking about it. When I consider the ideal scenario it gets me thinking about how I act in real life (doing my best to avoid annoying acronyms like IRL), and that has me considering that my ideal scenario is more as being a support rather than thought leader. I donāt tend to consider my ideas as being ones that will change a world, industry, organization, department or person. Ideally, I like my thoughts to simmer like a sauce on a stove, allowing time to make them better suited to their purpose. Then I go about my business and if anyone is looking for support I am always willing to share what Iāve learned, how Iāve adapted it to my needs, and to work with them to find a solution that works for their situation.
This kind of relational conversation doesnāt happen well online so Iām not sure the internet is even really the place for me to accomplish this. I suppose my āideal ādigitalā representationā would then revolve around sharing my experience when asked, and just bringing some small piece of joy to people when I canāt do that. Thatās not really an answer, but at least I have started to think about it.
Hi David,
Your comments about wanting to make a positive imprint when you do post online reminds me of an assignment I often do with my classes. We start with brainstorming 3 words that describe our best selves and how we want others to see us. We then go “incognito” and search our names. Ideally what comes back is evidence of those 3 words we wrote down. I do it as a personal branding type of exercise which I follow up with a few examples of how one bad choice can haunt you forever. It wasn’t until I made a career change. leaving the army and moving into academia, that this became really important to me. I realized that the story I was telling on social media, while amusing, might not be appropriate for my “brand”. I see your Twitter use is the most balanced social platform you use. I’m curious, how do you incorporate that into your role as an educator?
I really like that activity. It’s a great way to assess our online brand in a way that has people establish that ideal baseline before doing the research.
Every time I think about Twitter I think that I should reposition it on that map. I don’t use it much at all, and every time I do I regret it. The nonstop negativity gets to me, and eventually drives me away. I want to be a contributing member, but I just don’t see myself having anything to offer that fits the medium. The answer to your question is really just this: I don’t.
Hi David,
Personally, I find that I value not so positive contributions much more than positive ones. You shared your fear here and it made me think about mine. Upon examining it, I realized that my attitude towards online presence is very black and white. I do want to contribute, but I want my online persona to be as close as possible to my real personality, if not 100% exact copy. Which means sharing my flaws and weaknesses, and if i don’t do that I feel fake or as if I am hiding something. But is that a realistic expectation, to be fully yourself online ? Probably not. Most likely not. Most people don’t do that, just look at the mapping. Will you find there 4chan, adult content and other underground content that is not so accepted by moralistic society ? Should we have a safe boundary or should we push it a little bit ? I think I am going to experiment with that a little bit and see where it takes me.
Great thoughts! That idea of pushing those boundaries of acceptability can be really useful to social media, people, industry, etc. Sharing flaws/weaknesses can be very liberating and can allow you to reach people in ways you couldn’t before. But can you be too open? Open to the point of it being detrimental to getting a job, making people judge you out of ignorance, etc. Peoples’ opinions aren’t necessarily important, but on social media they certainly can have a huge impact. That openness/vulnerability is imperative in a quality relationship, but if mirrored online does it have the potential to be taken out of context and twisted? I need to find that boundary for myself as well. What does it actually look like to be who I am, but in an online context and with all the ramifications of an online society?