A Site To Call Home: Examining My Digital Residency

Background: Defining Residency

    

When considering my relationship with technology or the internet, it's hard to consider myself a "digital visitor"--with how much of my life is spent or cataloged online, I would have firmly considered myself a digital resident if I'd been asked before engaging in this exercise. However, when considering the visitor and resident model, created by David White, our relationship with the internet and specific corners of it can be reconsidered.

Image source: pearlynwangblog.wordpress.com

Digital visitors engage with a site or tool solely to complete a task or operation and then stop their use of it outside of that activity. They may return to do another activity or repeat the same task, but they do not have a recurring relationship or social presence with that technology. However, digital residents have a stronger presence with these tools, engaging with them outside of these specifics tasks and exploring all they have to offer. Residents may also engage with a stronger social aspect of the tool, making accounts and interacting with posts or other members.

My Digital Quadrant

Back to my own relationship with technology, and how often I consider myself a resident as opposed to a visitor. When thinking on this definition of visitor versus resident, my opinion of my own digital residency changes somewhat. Sites I considered to be a resident of ended up being more a visitor-site; even if I use the site daily, I'm not engaging with it meaningfully if I'm only using it to carry out the same, specific task. I wouldn't consider myself to be a digital resident of my timesheets site at work; even though I engage with it twice a day each time I work, I only use it to clock in and clock out. Beyond that there is no meaningful relationship, so I am only a visitor. 

When creating my digital quadrant, I considered a variety of digital tools and websites and created my own quadrant of visitor vs resident, coupled with a personal vs professional axis. I also sized the icons of sites I use based on the frequency on which I use them, with larger icons having a larger use frequency. 

Image source: author

Conclusions to Draw

One of the most striking trends I noticed was that in my personal use of the internet, I was much more of a digital resident on frequently used sites or tools than a visitor. On the other hand, I'm pretty evenly split between visitor and resident on the professional sites that I use. For example, with personal social media sites, I almost never use them to complete a task. Instead they're sites I regularly visit and engage with for the sake of that engagement. However, I did notice that for sites like Instagram I do also occasionally use them on a professional basis. On the other hand, I don't have much social engagement with professional sites besides email or chat apps for work. 

One of the biggest surprises I had was Goodreads being more professional than personal, and more resident than visitor. When I first made my account, I used the app exclusively to track and rate the books I had read. Then, it turned into my avenue for looking for new book recommendations and tracking release dates. Now, however, I also use it for reader's advisory at my job, and follow a number of accounts that post book reviews I use to help make purchases for my library. This is a great example of how a tool can start out on one end of the spectrum (personal, visitor) and end up trending towards the opposite (professional, resident) the more you interact with them and increase your presence there.

Overall this was an interesting exercise that made me look at my usage of internet tools and technology in a new light. I'd never considered before this what I was a visitor vs resident of, and these results are a great visual look into how my internet and tool habits and trends are mapped.