The focus for the first two weeks of the ONL course was to explore how people use digital spaces. The terms ‘Digital Natives’ and ‘Digital Immigrants’ were popularised by Marc Prensky in an article published in 2001. The former describes people born after, or grew up in, the digital age and who are ‘plugged in’ to many devices that afford immediate information, and constant connection to multitudes of social media platforms. These people are termed ‘natives’ and hypothesised to be at ease when in digital spaces. The latter describes people born and raised in an era prior to the popularisation of digital spaces, at a time where information were disseminated primarily via print and televised media; therefore acquiring these digital skills at a later age and termed ‘immigrants’. These terms were typically used to discuss pedagogical ideas surrounding new-age student learners in the face of increased online and digital influences.
Refinement to this dichotomous theory introduced nuances to the terms above. David White and Alison Le Cornu in 2011 proposed a cross sectional continuum of Visitor-Resident/Institutional-Personal framework to better describe how people participate in digital spaces. The use of the Visitor-Resident concept expanded beyond pedagogy and student learners, and now describe the myriad of uses of online spaces.
One recurrent idea that surfaced while discussing the Visitor-Resident framework with members of my ONL group was that the different generations (Boomers, GenX, GenY, GenZ, Millenials, Zoomers) could be easily characterised in their participation preferences of online tools and digital spaces. This really piqued my interest because, as a GenX-er, I worked part-time at the call centre of an internet service provider in the 1990s and experienced first-hand the popularisation of online spaces. The early days were exciting times, and the changes in the uses of online spaces were phenomenal. Rather than stereotyping the various ‘generations’ and their online participation, I believe that there is an evolution in the way people use online spaces.
When considering various applications and their places within the Visitor-Resident/Institutional-Personal framework, these are relevant only for that one point in time; and may change with differing circumstances, availabilities and necessities. The CoViD-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated this. For example, the rapid rise in popularity of conferencing platforms (e.g. Zoom) resulted in the reduced use of others (e.g. Skype). Adoption of various applications (and the literacy of their use) can at times be attributed to sheer necessity. For example, Boomers have become well-versed with telephone applications (e.g. WhatsApp) to communicate. Email applications may be primarily for work for many but may be restricted for personal use after retiring. This element of time is not captured in the Visitor-Resident/Institutional-Personal framework. An interesting exercise would be to place within the quadrants different applications at various stages of a person’s life to understand the changing uses of digital spaces.
