My Digital Footprint

Having been born on the cusp of the 21st century, technology has been ingrained into most aspects of my life. Growing up, I was definitely more of a resident of the internet, but as my frontal lobe has fully developed and I have learned more about the dangers of unfiltered internet access, I feel that I have become more like a visitor. My aunt recently had her identity stolen and her phone hacked, which has made me more wary of spending too much time online. This doesn't mean that I don't spend plenty of time in a digital space still; I just don't publicize my thoughts or share as much information about myself as I once did. In my digital map below, it is easy to visualize what websites and applications I am most active on in both personal and professional settings.

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Analysis

When it comes to my digital map, there is a bit of overlap between the professional and personal usage of applications. I am fortunate to work in a career that aligns with one of my main hobbies, so I am not entirely surprised to see this visible on my map. You can see that from how often I frequent the website/app Goodreads. It is a useful reference tool at work, where I use it mostly for simple search features. However, it is further along in the resident area for my personal life because I use it to both track my personal reading progress and TBR (to be read), as well as engage with my friend's reading processes (if anyone wants to add me as a friend you can find my profile here). Another digital space that has an overlap between my professional and personal life is Google. At work, I am a visitor as I mostly just use the search tool to look up information for guests, but in my personal life, I classified myself as a resident because I frequently use autofill to connect other accounts to my personal Gmail.

There is some information not as easily discerned from this map but was a factor in helping create it, which is how much time I spend on each platform. It is also more likely for me to use social media platforms later in the evening or on the weekend, so my limited use explains why I am not too far along in either the resident or visitor categories. Also, if a platform is further down the y-axis, that means that it is more commonly used. I utilize apps like TikTok and Instagram more frequently than Facebook, which is why I placed them further down in the personal category. 

Conclusion

Through creating this digital map, I have learned that I am less of a visitor to these online communities than I had originally thought. I check the websites/applications I listed almost every day, and though I don't post as much as I used to, I still engage with a variety of content on a regular basis, which puts me in the resident category for more than I had initially thought. Even when I'm not vocalizing my thoughts, I am "living out a portion of my life online" as David White articulates in a breakdown of his Residents and Visitors methodology. Overall, learning about the difference between digital residents and visitors and creating this map, has helped me become more mindful about how much I use certain tools online and why.