Visitors and Residents

The central idea in the video we watched was this dichotomy of people, residents who use the internet with a comfort level that allow them to approach current and new content at a higher level than visitors who are at a point where they value privacy and security in ways that limit their usage of online tools such as social media.

The video made some interesting points regarding both sides, some that I agreed with and some that I didn't. Some ideas that I agreed with are the communal aspect of residents and their ability to interact with others in an online format as well as the characterization of visitors as those who approach technology neither unable nor unwilling to use technology but instead with a different mindset about how and why to use it.  One of my main issues with the video was that it seemed to treat the internet and all of its various areas and tools as a single level of difficulty for residents to incorporate at will into their available skill sets.  I consider myself a resident in this divide and there are very many areas of the internet I am comfortable using to their full extent, capitalizing on educational tools and personal tools offered by various services and companies.  However there are many others that due to a number of factors such as design flaws, layout differences, unusual user interfaces, quality of use issues, and more become difficult to incorporate into my online tool set.

Overall the video makes some excellent points and sets up a new way of looking at those who use the internet and other technology not as those with skills and those without, but instead differentiates them by their mindset and approach to using those tools.  It's description of the two beyond this point falls short of a convincing argument however, and oversimplifies the qualities of these two groups.