This week's discussions focused on how we, as a society, perceive web literacy. A short recap is in order to help understand my thoughts on this...
An older view of looking at online technology literacy compares "natives" - those who grew up with technology and engage with it versus those that are older and engage less.
An alternative proposal is to view online technology literacy as a continuum with two axes using a compass as an example with West-East representing Visitor-Resident and North-South representing Personal-Institutional.
Visitors approach online technology and the web from the context of a toolbox where a tool is used to achieve a specific task or outcome such as using a search engine or Wikipedia on a research paper. In this context, a Visitor does not leave any trace of them self on the web.
Residents approach online technology and the web as a "habitation" where they create and establish a persistent presence - blogs, social networking sites, and leaving comments on blogs and social media are examples. In this context, a Resident leaves a trace of them self on the web.
The Personal-Institutional continuum comes into play as people "filter" or "assume a persona" on the web - for example, a professional wants to establish and maintain credibility so they will filter and control what they say and do. In contrast, a people interacting with friends and family within a closed or more private setting will tend to much more informal.
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My thoughts gravitate more towards the alternative proposal of the two continua. Before the Web, there were many online communities accessible via dial-up modems (a few examples in the US include CompuServe, AOL, and Prodigy). Later, as the web evolved, more feature rich services replaced earlier types of social media. As bandwidth and technology matured, more people engaged with online technologies. Many of the people using these earlier sites were older and had not grown up with technology - the attraction was to stay in touch with family and friends, re-establish ties with friends and family, and to meet new people with similar interests. As technology itself has become easier to use, bandwidth has increased, and the Web has become more pervasive geographically, more people are connecting, which I feel is also an important factor in people adopting and engaging with the Web.
In the first days of the WWW I was fascinated by the possibility to access international groups to all earthly fields of action. Suddenly the world became small: Global village. In other words, it was suddenly less important where you live in the province or in the big city. At least in my understanding. So I had to build up certain skills or knowledge to take advantage of these new opportunities and be able to participate at all. So I started to code and was totally astonished by the simplicity of creating new spaces online. I mean: It was actually not complicated, I did not need a lot of money to be able to create something. I had to know things. That was kind of empowering to me.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the bandwidth as also increased the width and depth of usage.
ReplyDeleteThe notion of "foot-prints" on the web is interesting, both in terms of the visible traces we (choose to) leave, and in terms of big data that service providers collect much more unobtrusively. I think you are quite right in leaning towards a conceptualization of digital literacy as involving the visitor/resident and personal/institutional continua. The native/immigrant approach is both more polarizing and also really rather one-dimensional.
ReplyDelete