The first ONL topic is over, and time has come to summarise and reflect. It has been two very rewarding weeks. It is hard to avoid thinking about the rapid development in the digital world, since it affects us all, whether we like it or not. But I have never done it in so many words, and I certainly like David White’s terminology about Visitors and Residents. It makes sense, and good names are always helpful in any discussion.

Personally, I am quite clearly a Visitor for most of my time online. I very much recognise myself in White’s description of a typical Visitor: The internet contains lots of useful information, and the University’s digital library is just amazing, with its access to almost any article in the world. In my work as a statistician, I also make heavy use of discussion forums like StackOverflow and CrossValidated, where answers to surprisingly many detailed technical questions can be found.

Similarly, White description of the Visitor’s reluctance to digital identities feels applicable to myself: Wish for privacy, a feeling of banality (and perhaps self-centeredness) in social media. Personally, I can add a concern about information overload, as well as a touch of shyness, and hence unease about public exposure.

I have actually tried Facebook, but I cannot say I liked it very much. Being perhaps somewhat introvert, I feel reluctant to “shouting out” whatever I might have to say. I definitely prefer communicating with people I know in a closed community. The input from others largely seemed to consist of a combination of junk information (look what I had for lunch today) and “social bragging” (look how happy I am with my wonderful family). There were certainly things I liked too, but somehow they tended to drown in a stream of trivialities.

I can also feel a concern as to what social media does to us. You probably can’t blame them alone for things like harshness in dialogue, disinformation, and division of society into groups that don’t communicate with each other, but I do think they play a role. As a non-user (non-Resident!), I should of course be careful in judging this, and I certainly appreciate good sides, like forming groups to bring food to corona-isolated elderly. And it is obviously desirable, from a democratic point of view, that “anyone can publish”.

In my work, I do not need much Residency, neither as a statistician, nor as a teacher. Email and meetings (sometimes on Zoom) are usually sufficient. I lecture in front of the students, and even course administration can largely be handled over email. I am definitely open to the idea of using more digital tools in my teaching, but I don’t see it as a goal in itself. If it serves a need, I am interested, though. One situation that has arisen a few times is a request from commuting students to follow lectures online. So far, I haven’t met this request, partly due to a lack of technical tools (or lack of digital literacy!), and partly because it has felt awkward to be seen, and possibly recorded, by invisible persons. Gradually becoming more used to Zoom meetings, however, I think I would feel better about the latter now, although the tech might still be a challenge.

So, I guess this last point illustrates a good thing about a course like this, in particular its “meta”-design. Thinking about digital questions makes them more tangible, and trying things out makes them a little less scary.