Visitor and Residents

Dr. White's theory about people's motivations on the Internet explains a lot and in some ways has helped me come to terms with my own identity on the net and why I might feel the way I do. I'm definitely a visitor and I'm finding residency is a challenge for me. When the Internet first took off and during the infancy of social media, I was more of a resident and it was almost an addiction. I would spend many of my nights playing srogue and interacting with others using Unix. I had an alias and even met a guy online and we started dating. This was extremely novel back then and I loved any chance to be online. It was a "second life" though most of it involved online gaming. However, as the Web 2.0 tools took off and social media tools and platforms became abundant, I found myself retreating into the shadows. I became a visitor. I think some of this was because I was and educator and was worried about my online persona. I was also an adult and concerned about identity theft, and I did view Facebook as a type of egomania. At some level, I wondered how the residents found the time and did not see the value of it. On another level, I felt left out. I wanted to be more visible but felt I had nothing to blog about, tweet about, or really post. My feelings about the value of it all changed during the Egyptian Revolution. The revolution in Egypt was a truly new social movement. Here the social space and meeting point was the Web. It gave voices and meaning and started to bring about change. It provided individuals a space to mobilize that would have been next to impossible without it. So, where do I see myself now? I think I'm becoming a resident, at least professionally.

Reference:

White, D. S. (2011). Visitors and Residents. Retrieved on September 11, 2014 at http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2009/10/14/visitors-residents-the-video/t