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Echo chamber? Sign me up!
As the great Xodus to BlueSky gathered pace over the past fortnight it was fun (ie, not fun at all) to see the entirely predictable “it’ll just be an echo chamber in BlueSky” pieces. Because they are attempting to legitimately monitor content lots of trolls feel hard done by. “Come back” they say “the racists and misogynists just want to chat”. Before all the Mastodon gang pile in, I want to stress that this isn’t necessarily a pro-BlueSky piece, more an anti-X one. I’ve seen enough enshittification to know that BlueSky will probably go that way on day too. But for now, let us enjoy the frothing from the Musk…
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Universities need to leave X
[Update: I don’t think I made it clear enough that I’m talking about the official comms channels of universities here, not individual academics. They should have left X ages ago.] I’m not the first person to advocate this, but the timing and the case for it now seems even stronger. UK universities (but all HEIs really), need to get off X/Twitter as an official platform now. I have a lot of respect for colleagues in Comms, and they are balancing many different factors. It’s easy for people like me to say it, but much more difficult to undertake as an institutional policy. I get it, but now is the time.…
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Say hello to PEE – your Personal Engagement Environment
I’ve blogged about the Twitter Diaspora, arguing that Twitter was a default place for many in higher education. Alan suggests that the Town Hall was something of a myth, and while there’s probably some truth in that, I would content that, during the 2010s, if you were in higher ed, and active in social media, then you had a Twitter account. You would likely have other platforms also, and maybe some you preferred over Twitter, but Twitter could act as a default engagement platform. That assumption no longer holds true. In a very timely special issue of JIME on social media, Apostolos Koutropoulos and 8 co-authors consider this fragmentation of…
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Social media as festive metaphors
I gave the keynote at the Social Media in Higher Education conference on Tuesday. As it was the in the week before the Christmas break, I chose to adapt my social media choices as 70s disco track idea and use festive metaphors. First of all I emphasised the problems with using metaphors, and how festive metaphors can highlight this – not everyone celebrates Christmas, and not everyone celebrates it in the same way. The metaphor can therefore be excluding or get in the way of the point you are trying to make. I hope there was enough social recognition of the metaphors however for them to be meaningful. I wanted…
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X-terminate
I know I should have done it ages ago, but I’ve finally decided to leave Twitter and deactivate my account. Yes, I know you can make all the “it’s not an airport you don’t need to announce your departure” gags now – but I’ve written about Twitter pretty consistently over the past 16 years so it would be strange not to comment on the end of that identity. It’s been a tough decision. I’ve been on that platform for over 16 years, pretty much every day. I formed friendships through it, found interesting connections, discovered new resources, explored different perspectives, and had a lot of fun. I was so enamoured…
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30 Years of Ed Tech – 2023: Twitter Diaspora
Since the 25 Years of Ed Tech book finished in 2018, I have been writing an annual addition at the end of the year. The reason I started the 25 Years series was to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of ALT. This year they are celebrating their 30th, so I’m writing this one early in honour of the ALT-C conference next week. Digital diaspora is a term that has been used variously to describe diaspora from physical communities using the internet to stay connected and to describe black participation online. This Washington Post article uses the phrase to highlight how black communities that used Twitter effectively for coordinating protests and raising…
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Your social media choices, as 70s disco tracks
Let’s play an imaginary game (it might actually be real for some of you). You are applying for a large research grant, and one of the work packages relates to dissemination and community building. Beyond the standard conference papers, academic articles and workshops, there is an assumption that there will be a strong online element. What platform or approach do you write into your grant? For the past decade or so, the go-to answer would be a Twitter account, probably with associated website and maybe a YouTube channel. The other bits may vary, but the Twitter account was often the sine qua non in getting engagement with a project beyond…
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Wake up, time to die
via GIPHY Another Twitter demise post, sorry. I can’t even say I’m enjoying the spectacle of Musk making a public arse of himself like it’s a performance art piece. Every day on that site is now filled with posts from him, and about him, even if you try to avoid it. I don’t want to think about Musk. I don’t want to know what other people think about Musk. Like a cryptocurrency convention in Vegas, it’s just not a place I want to spend any time in. This will be the cause of decline far more than any usability or moral stance – there are a lot of spaces to…
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Oh no, it’s another Twitter thought piece
via GIPHY I didn’t want to write this, you don’t want to read it, but here we are… I used to play a football manager game in the 90s (gaming was all downhill after Championship Manager 98), and once I learned the best players to sign, and how to keep rebooting until I won a game, I could get to the stage where Southend were winning the Champions League. There’s nowhere else to go after this triumph, and so my designs turned dark. As a Spurs fan I took a childish pleasure in taking over Arsenal and doing all I could to ruin them before getting the sack. I would…
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Your house is a very fine house
Generally I’m adverse to Twitter Quit Lit pieces (“How I turned off social media and learned to love life again”). I find them a) patronising (I’ve seen the truth and you poor suckers are caught in the trap), b) insulting and shallow (like when people live on minimum wage for a month and then make judgements about it) and c) egotistical (“I need to let my fans know I’m going offline, look everyone, I’m going offline!”). But with all that said, I have been thinking about social media usage, and taking more control over it recently. As the world turns ever more into a bad parody of a satire written…
