I am a Digital Citizen
Digital citizenship is a term closely related with digital literacy like I have previously talked about on my blog. While digital literacy covers the idea of being able to use and understand the information provided to you digitally, digital citizenship expands much further than that. Simply put, according to Mike Ribble on his site digitalcitizenship.net, digital citizenship is “the continuously developing norms of appropriate, responsible, and empowered technology use.” The idea of using the internet expands from simply understanding how to use it, to understanding how to use it safely and responsibly. A community on the internet is made that meant to be safe and welcoming for all to use. Without people choosing to be responsible with what they’re doing on the internet, there would likely be few places people would actually want to spend time on it.
The idea of digital citizenship as defined by Ribble, Baily and Ross follows nine themes:
- Digital etiquette
- Digital communication
- Digital access
- Digital literacy
- Digital commerce
- Digital law
- Digital rights and responsibilities
- Digital health and wellness
- Digital security
Each theme is a topic they believe people should learn about and follow in order to become a responsible citizen of the internet. Without following these themes, people put themselves and others at risk by creating an unsafe environment for people to be interacting with.
Digital citizenship is a topic that should be taught not only to children just beginning to explore and use the internet, but also to adult who may already be using the internet but aren’t using it safely. Children do a lot of learning early on from watching adults around them doing things and then copying them, so if they see an adult using the internet unsafely, there is a good chance they will do that as well. Even now at our age as college students, we can help out by teaching people like our parents or grandparent how to be digital citizens if they use the internet to not only make their experience on the internet more safe, but also for all the other people that they could interact with on the internet. I still learn things about being a safe and responsible digital citizenship every day with how fast the internet is changing with each passing day. You will likely never know every way to be safe on the internet, but it’s good to try to learn as many ways as you can.
Even now, educators are recognizing the need to teach students how to be good digital citizens and integrating it into lessons in easily taught lessons. There was a poster I remember seeing on the walls all the time back in high school with the acronym “THINK.” It’s a common poster among educators as it explains to students that “before they post something online, whether it is information, a photo, or a post of any kind, they should ask themselves if it is true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, and kind. If the answer to any of the questions is no, then they probably shouldn’t post or share the information” (Cole, 2019).
Overall, digital citizenship is about being safe on the internet, and it will always be important to remember that part of being safe on the internet, is spending time away from the internet. As part of theme eight as defined by Ribble, Baily and Ross, digital health and wellness is a part of digital citizenship that I think isn’t discussed as much when it comes to specifically talking about being a good digital citizen. Digital health and wellness includes physical and emotional health which means that sometimes taking time away from the internet will make you an even better digital citizen. With 54% of teens and 36% of parents thinking they spend too much time on their phones (Jiang 2018), it’s sometimes best to step away from technology.
The concept of digital citizenship is an important part of the internet as it provides a basis for what people should be learning from their usage of it. It’s impossible to start out immediately with all the skills of a responsible digital citizen, but it’s good to know what the goal is for which skills you should be working on developing with your time on the internet.
In the end, I would describe digital citizenship as a way of being on the internet and acting responsibly in order to make a welcoming environment for people to want to use.
