Twitter (X Account Deactivated)

As of today I have deactivated my Twitter account. I joined Twitter in 2008. I want not part of the Elon Musk show and his nonsense. Twitter is dead.

Social Media Companies Need to Be Accountable and Better Contributors to Society

 "No, Facebook and the other big tech companies are, plainly, tearing the social fabric to threads, and pulling people apart." Justin E.H. Smith, The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is, A History, A Philosophy, A Warning

Though Facebook and other social media companies have boasted about connecting people together, they have, in fact, been "pulling people apart." Social media as it is currently constructed, does not connect people or bring them together; it separates, divides, and polarizes. Its promotion of the sensational, the most engagement-causing content has created a machine that values nonsense, gossip, and the most outrageous over what is true.

In addition to being a misinformation propagator and spreader, it values the self-absorbed, self promoter regardless of the true worth or value of the content these "so-called influencers" spread. X, formally Twitter, is a bullsplat amplification platform that effectively spreads nonsense far and wide. Facebook facilitates and algorithmically groups people in homogenous worlds where users can escape any views or perspectives that diverge from their own small worlds. Tik Tok provides users with endless hours of nonsense in video format. Social media as a whole doesn't deserve the pedestal on which our culture has placed it, nor the amount of energy educational leaders have devoted to it.

What is even more tragic is that educators and educational leaders have accepted uncritically what the social media companies have said about the necessity and inevitability of their products. The whole social media promotion industry of social media gurus and so-called communication specialists have convinced both educational institutions and companies that they "need to be be on social media and participate or suffer irrelevance." Anyone questioning this social media dogma is branded a heretic and as being anti-tech or anti-progress. 

But it is time to begin questioning the place of all these social media platforms in our culture and society. It is also time to push for regulations of these platforms and to hold them accountable for the damage they do. We need to stop these companies from "tearing our social fabric to threads... pulling people apart" and demand that they be better contributors to society.

Time to Demote Social Media to Super-Market Tabloid Status

“Because corporations are not elected, they cannot be voted out, and yet they have become pseudogovernmental by virtue of their wealth, power, and the reach of their technological systems. Their leaders insist that they, and they alone, know what is best for us—from what information we should see to how much privacy we should retain. Increasingly, these companies have placed themselves in the role of determining how we move about in the world, literally and figuratively, and their power to define our reality increasingly extends to the power to decide elections in the US and other nations, taking away our most fundamental rights as citizens to self-determination." Mar Hicks, "When Did the Fire Start" in Your Computer Is On Fire

It's time to demote social media's status in our lives.

The problem with social media systems like Twitter, is that we have given them too much power over us. They have become "pseudo-governmental," to use the term used by Hicks (2021), which means they become the unelected governors over the information diet we consume. 

Place an autocratic, narcissistic CEO in charge of such companies, which is what we have in Elon Musk, and the real danger is that the social media system becomes at best a polluted information ecosystem flooded with misinformation and nonsense. At worse, the social media system becomes a propaganda mechanism, promoting what a CEO like Musk thinks is best for us. The question then becomes do we really want someone like Musk deciding what information is relevant for us? Do we want him determining what free speech means? I think not. 

We as consumers get to really decide how much value social media has in our lives. Honestly, I think we should not have listened to the techno-utopian hype in the 2000s that promised that social media would foster connections and community. It hasn't. We are more separated and polarized than ever, and social media is the cause. It is time to relegate social media to the same status as the super-market tabloid.

Social Media: Tool for Manufacturing Ourselves and 'Truth'

What is the real issue with social media? Set aside the fact that entities like Facebook are selling our personal data to the highest bidder. Ignore the practice of the perpetual eavesdropping of these companies in our personal lives. What the real issue is with social media is simple: You can't believe anything you see. You can't trust that others are who they say they are. It is a place of fiction and fantasy, distortion and misinformation. It is a place where truth is whatever users determine or think it to be.

The problem at the rotten heart of social media is best described by Margaret Wheatley in Who Do We Choose to Be? She writes:

"In humans, how we define ourselves determines our perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, values. Social media enables a culture of manufactured identities, where people create any self that ensures their popularity. In the Digital Age, identity has changed from a culturally transmitted sense of self within a group to an individual one, where you can be anything you want." (p. 19)

Any technology that allows one to "manufacture" his or her identity is problematic. While it might be acceptable to "market" oneself, in social media, truth is often the fatality. The worst quality of social media is that it allows individuals to manufacture a version of themselves that is far from who they really are. They can be someone they want to be rather than be authentic.

If there's one lesson educators need to get about social media, and share with students is this: Social media is not simply a communication media. It is a media of distortion and propaganda. It creates manufactured persons. Educators of all people should be wise enough to see this rather than buying into the hype of what this industry would have us believe.

Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In aren't simply tools of networking and connection: they are tools for manufacturing identities.

Twitter (And Other Social Media): Our Ego-Inflation and Self-Promotion Device

Have you really thought about the nature of social media? Most of us use it. I've even praised it, but lately I have begun to really examine it and its use in my own life. We users of social media often forget that it has specific design characteristics whose purpose is perhaps not what we think.

For example, we have been fond of praising the ability of Twitter to allow us to connect with others. But is being "followed" or "following someone" a "connection?" Or, are we connected simply because the medium, in this case Twitter, has declared us connected? Connection, of course is in the words of the definer. We all have our versions of it, but I can't help but wonder if having former president Barack O'bama as a follower and on my followed list is truly a connection. In my thinking it's not. He and I have never exchanged a word. For all I know, a publicist is the one who made the decision of who ends up on his followed list. That certainly destroys in my mind any thought of authentic connection. If I really want to connect with someone, we certainly have to have more than a declaration from Twitter or a few brief word exchanges in the form of a Tweet. But is connection really the purpose of Twitter?

I really think the purpose, whether we Twitter users ever acknowledge it or not, is unabashedly self-promotion. It is one gigantic ego-inflation device where we can be someone and attempt to break out of our meager corners of the world and try to be a celebrity. Twitter's ego-inflation system is used by us to try to stir the world either up or in our direction. After all, in the United States, we currently have a "Tweeter-in-Chief" who knows too well about its ego-inflation abilities. He uses it as a blaring horn that declares for the world who he is and how great he is. Haven't we all felt a bit that same way when something we've posted on Twitter gets "retweeted" and "liked" many times? Our ego becomes a bit more inflated with each of these.

Perhaps we should give up the race for retweets and likes and more followers. After all, just the idea of these is truly more about us than we think. We wear these like medals. Some even like to remind others in their tweets just how many followers and unfollowers they have. If connecting with others were our true goal, it wouldn't be about the numbers of followers we have, nor would it be about how much of our Tweets echo about Twitterverse. It would be about the depth and authenticity of our relationships and discussions between other people in that world. Instead, we are prodded by this ego-inflation device to post in order to declare loudly what we want the world to see as us, but this "us" is simply a shadow in cyberspace.

What should we then do with Twitter? (Or Facebook, Instagram, etc. for that matter) I am not entirely ready to delete my accounts as Jaron Lanier recently argues in his book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. That seems draconian to me at this point, but it is worth consideration. Instead, I am going to own up to what Twitter (and social media) is, as I've come to see it. I might even conduct some experiments with it. For example, instead of just playing by Twitter's rules of "retweet" and "likes," I might seek NOT to have my tweets liked and retweeted. It is said that our world does not like to have reality thrown back into its face, so why not use Twitter and other social media as a means to question its created reality? Why not be truly real and post what we really are thinking instead of seeking validation of others through their liking and retweeting of what we have to say? Also, since Twitter seems to be a powerful "self-promotion" device as well as a idea-promotion device, perhaps I can use it authentically in that manner?

Considering the American character, is it really a surprise that social media like Twitter is an American invention? We've long since liked self-promoting ourselves through our own exceptionalist beliefs. We historically throughout our past have had leaders talk about us being a beacon to the rest of the world, a light in a world of darkness. Twitter, no doubt, provides us with a personal mega-horn, or so we think, to shout "What's happening?" in our lives and in our worlds that we think might serve as a beacon for others. But have we really stopped to think, are we really reading all those "tweets" in our timelines? Is anyone reading them? Or if we're reading them, are simply looking for words that also validate our view of the world? Then, because we've chosen whom to follow, these words are like the words of so many cyber-sycophants, only telling us what we want to hear?

Let's perhaps be critically honest and sober about our social media and not get caught in the hype. Twitter is designed with specific characteristics that can make it, not about connecting, but about ego-inflation and confirmation of our own little worlds. It isn't about global perspectives; it's about promoting ourselves and creating the world we ourselves want.

False Promise of Social Media: Confessions of a Former SM Evangelist

In some of my past blog posts, I’ve often talked about how social media fostered conversations and connections. I now confess: I’ve been wrong all these years. It does neither. Social media is more about self-promotion, dividing people, and making useless declarations than it is about connecting people.

To see this, just take a moment to examine your Facebook News Feeds and Twitter timelines. Both of these are riddled with posts from others mostly designed to insult and belittle those who are not part of our tribes and who believe different than we do. For more evidence of the true power of social media, just look at our President whose Twitter posts do more to keep America divided than ever. While we are all complicit in this division and disconnection, it is also inherent in the design flaws for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. This is because these social media sites are constructed not to foster conversations nor connections. Instead, they are designed to foster shallow declarations, division and the celebration of whoever can make the most outrageous contributions.

In his book, Anti-Social Media: How Facebook Disconnects Use and Undermines Democracy, Siva Vaidhyanathan writes:

“Social media, and Facebook in particular, do not foster conversation. They favor declaration. They do not allow for deep deliberation. They spark shallow reaction."

As an avid social media user of over ten years, I’ve come to the same conclusions as Vaidhyanathan: social media isn’t bringing anyone together. It only provides people the opportunity to shout epithets and disparaging statements at each other, or post photos and anti-conservative or anti-liberal placards all in an effort to get a reaction from those of other tribes. Social media is not a place for civil discussions or deliberation about the issues that concern us. They are simply places where we can post statements that take political jabs towards those who are not of our tribe.

On many occasions I’ve tried to engage others in conversations and deliberations about various issues (just look back over my Twitter timeline), but it's mostly a waste of time. I’ve also been equally guilty of posting content that tries to incite a reaction from those who believe differently from myself.

The reality is that, on social media, no one convinces any one else of anything. When we use social media, we simply keep exchanging divisive nonsense back and forth, which is what both Twitter and Facebook want and need to exist. Both of these social media sites need users who engage with each other in order to survive. With their systems of “likes,” “retweets,” and “laughing faces,” Facebook and Twitter function like “levers in a Skinner box," as Vaidhyanathan puts it. They manipulate us to post more and more on their sites, and the more inflammatory and reactionary, the better for Facebook and Twitter. The more outrageous the better. Unfortunately, none of this "connection" results in the best interests of community.

Social media has become a tool to divide rather than to bring together for substantive discussion. As an educator, I've been wrong about the potential of this 21st century technology. We as educators have an obligation to stop being "evangelists" for social media, and educate others, including our students on what social media has done and continues to do to American society. 

7 Must-Read Resources on Social Media for School Leaders

There are obviously quite a few social media resources available to school leaders on the Web, but finding high-quality information can be difficult. Here are some books that I consider vital for school leaders seeking to learn as much as they can about its potential to enhance leadership and education. Each of these books are excellent sources of information for the school leader trying to learn about social media and potential in educational leadership.
 
Why Social Media Matters: School Communication in the Digital Age by Kitty Porterfield and Meg Carnes 
Porterfield and Carnes' book is one of my personal favorites. As the title suggests, it focuses on providing school leaders with the "know-how" of using social media as a communications tool. School leaders, however, are not encouraged to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools as a 21st century announcement system. Porterfield and Carnes encourage school leaders to use social media's most powerful feature, the ability to engage stakeholders in a multi-way conversation. This book equips school leaders with the tools necessary to communicate effectively using social media in the 21st century.




 
The School Leader's Guide to Social Media by Ron Williamson and J. Howard Johnston
Williamson and Johnston's book offers school leaders a complete panoramic view of social media. They give one of the most comprehensive views of both the potentials and the pitfalls of engaging in social media use. Williamson and Johnston provide such timely information as: Concerns and Benefits of Social Media Use, Encouraging Responsible Use of Social Media, Creating Acceptable Use Policies Governing Social Media Use, Overview of the Social Media Tools, and Social Media Skills to Be Taught. The School Leader's Guide to Social Media is one of the most comprehensive resources available on social media.




 
The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in the Digital Age by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall
This book provides school leaders with a complete review of what it means to engage in the use of social media as a "connected learner." Nussbaum-Beach and Hall take readers through the whole idea of engaging in social media as a means to learn 21st century style. Using the tools of social media allows school leaders to expand their connections to a world beyond the classroom. This book provides a complete model to make global learning and connecting happen.




 
What School Leaders Need to Know about Digital Technologies and Social Media edited by Scott McLeod and Chris Lehmann
In this collection of essays, edited by educational technology experts Scott McLeod and Chris Lehmann, school leaders get one of the most complete descriptions of the tools of the social media toolbox. This book takes readers through a complete survey of all the tools---from blogs to social bookmarking to even gaming. Readers will find this comprehensive overview of social media tools extremely useful and they plan and development social media strategy.




 
Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education by Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli
Richardson and Mancabelli’s book is one of the most comprehensive and engaging reads yet on the potential of “Personal Learning Networks” as a transformative force in education. This book focuses less on the social media tools and more on the strategies educators can use to foster, not only the development of their own personal learning networks, but also the personal learning networks of the students they teach. As a part of the school leader’s library, this book is an excellent strategy guide for engaging in social media as a means to foster personal learning.


 


Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss
While this is the only book on the list not written specifically for educators, Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online is the best guide for school leaders who want to move beyond just using social media as personal learning network tool or as a communication tool. This book provides strategy on how to proactively engage in social media use to foster a positive online reputation. In the 21st century, school leaders can ill-afford to ignore their school or school district’s online reputation. This book provides school leaders with the tools in which to engage social media as public-relations tool and become completely transparent, which is an expectation for 21st century organizations.




 
Social Media for School Leaders by Brian Dixon
Dixon’s book is another excellent resource on social media for the 21st century school leader. This book gives another comprehensive overview of the social media tools, including some not found in the other books. It also provides readers with a comprehensive framework for understanding how to use social media effectively. Dixon’s books is excellent combination of introduction of the social media tools and the strategies to use to engage in their use effectively.



 
These seven resources provide school leaders with the most comprehensive view of social media possible. By reading these and referring back to them often, as well as engaging in the use of the tools and the strategies, school leaders can effectively become social media leaders in their schools or districts.