Social Media &
Digital History
I have never been an avid Twitter
user. Being a child who is growing up in and among the technological boom of
the 21st century, my preferences tend to lend themselves to social
medias with more depth. Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, all seem like better
ways to occupy my social media attention, though I do have a twitter.
I am willing to admit that I have
largely underestimated the used of Twitter for academic and historical purpose.
I began reading “10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics” I automatically knew
that I blog post would be about shaming and completely going against Twitter
and academics has a happily married couple.
You see, here are my drawbacks- in
and among my Twitter followers and accounts that I follow, twitter is used for
mindless thinking, status updates, complaining. The amount of people bashing
and “sub-tweeting” is horrendous. Twitter is a drama incubator.
However, through the drama, stupid
comments, and Taylor Swift quoting my eyes have been opened to the potential of Twitter. The first of these
potential characteristics that may be beneficial to academics is the ability to
share outside information with a click of a button. Things like articles and
videos can be shared with the click of a button as you copy a link and post it
on your twitter. This kind of information sharing is ingenious. It makes me
think, “What if all I scrolled through on Twitter were intelligent, useful
sayings and links?” It is hard to imagine, but the possibility of the way education
would explode would be unstoppable. Nowadays, clicking on an article from
someone you follow (who you already think is worthy of following and want to
hear what they have to say) does not seem like learning. In this way, education
is almost hidden in the confines of social media expanding and sharing
knowledge on a casual exchange of thought.
Second, once interest is peaked, a
user may be lead to click on a hashtag. Now, again, it is hard to imagine the
possibilities outside of the usage I see of this daily. However, the idea is
useful. Hashtags have become a sort of joke, almost a competition. But, if used correctly can make connections
in education. If people used hashtags to genuinely to find out more information
about a topic, they would do just that. One could research the #civilwar and
find connections to more articles, letters, events, videos, and even people pertaining
to the Civil War. If used this way, Twitter’s academic capabilities are wide
and sure.
A final word on teacher/professor
use on social media. I believe teachers, if willing to have students peak into
their lives, should open up their social media to be viewed by students. This
makes professors and teachers so much more approachable and relatable. Students
always joke that teachers and professors don’t have lives outside of the
classroom because they work so hard to keep students out of their personal
lives. When closed off, students are less willing to share their information, and
approach the teacher about problems and circumstances.