Visitors and Residents: mapping student attitudes to academic use of social networks

The Visitors and Residents model of internet use suggests a continuum of modes of engagement with the online world, ranging from tool use to social spaces. In this paper, we examine evidence derived from a large cohort of students to assess whether this idea can be validated by experimental evidence. We find statistically significant differences between individuals displaying ‘Visitor’ or ‘Resident’ attitudes, suggesting that the Visitors and Residents model is a useful typology for approaching and understanding online behaviour. From our limited sample, we have been able to produce evidence that the Visitors and Residents labels are statistically robust. This demonstrates that the Visitors and Residents approach provides a valuable framework for those considering the use of social tools in educational contexts.