12-03-2014

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 21^st 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.