My Digital Footprint
It was fascinating to learn about the visitor-resident typology model created by White & LeCornu (2011). It defines visitors as people who come to the web for a specific purpose and then leaves. In contrast, residents are active members of online communities and maintain their digital personas while offline.
I spent some time mapping out my technology use to determine where I fall on this visitor-resident continuum and discovered that when I use the web for personal purposes, most of my activity falls into the visitor-personal quadrant. Here are a few points that stood out for me. First, Twitter and LinkedIn are two of my favourite social media sites. Initially for personal use, I now use these platforms for both work and personal engagement.
I also noticed that in my visitor-institutional quadrant, I listed technologies like Caseworks and OTN, which are used in digital health. The Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN) allows doctors to consult with patients virtually. Caseworks is a cloud-based digital client repository.
Additionally, LinkedIn Learning fits into all four quadrants. For example, I use it to learn new technologies. With that, LinkedIn Learning enables me to share updates and engage with my online LinkedIn community. This engagement spills over into the resident quadrant.
This excellent exercise forced me to pause and consider how I interact with these digital technologies. I look forward to exploring further as I spend a significant amount of time each day interacting with digital technologies for work and personal activities.
Reference:
White, D. S., & LeCornu, A. (2011). Visitors and residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9).
Thanks Shazia,
Your tech map is very thorough! There are lots of technologies I use on your list, that didn’t make it on my map such as: Amazon, Trello, LinkedInLearning, ebay, craigslist.
Do you post or repost content on your LinkedIn profile or is it mainly for people to find you and connect with you and your job experience?
Hi Patrick,
Thank you for commenting on my blog post! As I considered this activity, I realized how many different technologies I use for both personal and professional purposes! I’ve discovered that these technologies/apps are the ones I use the most! It’s challenging to list all of the apps we use because we live in a digital age and constantly interact with technology!
On my personal Linkedin, I don’t post a lot of content. I’m careful about what I post and share with my network. I usually provide and share information about upcoming educational rounds (live webinars for clinicians) that we hold at work, which are free to all clinicians and usually include evidence-based research and best practices for topics related to safe prescribing for older adults. Along with one of my coworkers, I also manage the LinkedIn page for my company. I primarily use my LinkedIn to connect with people and keep up with industry trends and news.
Great map, Shazia. You have some items I would maybe consider for my map. I forgot about Trello, which I use in my Events class as a planning tool. I was interested to see Moodle in the personal space vs institution. I use it for work and school, whereas, for you, I suppose being in school is a “personal activity” vs your work as the institution. As a non-Twitter user, I was wondering how you use it with SharePoint because I see they overlap?
Many thanks, Gill! It’s great to see that you, too, use Trello! Patrick and Christopher both use Trello as well. It’s an excellent tool, and I absolutely love it for its simplicity and usefulness! Perhaps we can also use it in the future with our MALAT program if we are collaborating on a project!
You are correct; I listed Moodle as a personal activity because I use it exclusively for educational purposes and not at work! I noticed that while we may use the same technologies, the context in which we use them and the features of the technology that we use most place them in distinct quadrants. For instance, I included “TikTok” in the visitor/personal quadrant because I do not create content on TikTok; rather, I use it to consume content.
You made an excellent point about the overlap between Twitter and SharePoint in my map. I use SharePoint and Twitter independently of one another, and they are not linked. My SharePoint box overlapped with Twitter because I was contemplating where it falls on the visitor-resident continuum and how far it veers toward resident.