Over the previous couple of weeks I’ve fielded plenty of emails from readers who’re questioning if they need to keep on Twitter. Most of these emails have included requests for the place to go subsequent to maintain up with ed tech. My solutions have principally been, “I am unable to inform you should you ought to stop Twitter” and “electronic mail and Feedly.”
Whether or not or not you need to keep on Twitter is a call that you need to make for your self. A few of my good pals have deleted or a minimum of disabled their accounts. I haven’t got plans to do the identical, however I additionally have not been updating it or checking it almost as a lot as I did 5 years in the past not to mention for the reason that Elon Musk takeover. For me, the shine of social media dulled a minimum of 5 years in the past. Since then my favourite approach to work together with individuals has been by way of electronic mail or telephone calls or Zoom calls. That goes for skilled interactions in addition to private interactions.
As for “maintaining” I subscribe to a couple weekly newsletters that I at all times learn. These embrace the TCEA publication, Lee LeFever’s publication, and Chris Brogan’s publication. And I’ve a couple of PR contacts who I belief to solely ship me worthwhile press releases (the remainder go straight to the trash bin). I am additionally an avid listener of the Planet Cash podcasts from NPR.
Feedly is the RSS reader that I have been utilizing for the reason that demise of Google Reader. In the event you’re undecided what an RSS reader is, it is principally a approach to learn updates out of your favourite web sites with out having to go to them immediately. A greater clarification is supplied by Lee LeFever in his video RSS in Plain English.
Feedly makes it straightforward to subscribe to the web sites that you just like and browse their updates multi functional place. Excluding the few newsletters that I discussed above, I choose to make use of Feedly to observe my favourite web sites as a result of I can do it by myself tempo with out feeling like my inbox is being invaded. If you wish to give Feedly a strive, watch this video to learn to get began.
What about TikTok, Instagram, Mastodon, Fb, LinkedIn, flavor-of-the-day?
My Fb web page was by no means a precedence for me even when my posts there have been getting 100,000+ day by day natural interactions. That was earlier than Fb began suppressing web page content material that was paid promoting. The likes had been only a by-product of sharing my weblog posts. That stated, I nonetheless share my weblog posts there simply in case somebody is definitely making an attempt to observe my web page regardless of the obstacles that Fb places in place.
The mess that’s the Fb feed algorithm is consultant of the higher problem of looking for and observe significant data on any social media platform. All the platforms reward quick, attention-grabbing content material no matter whether or not or not there may be any substance to it. It is superb for leisure (or killing time in line at a authorities workplace just like the DMV), but it surely’s not the place I am going for substance. Once I need substance I will flip to long-form content material present in Feedly, in electronic mail newsletters, and more and more I get misplaced in rabbit holes on Google Scholar.
To be clear, I have never but given Mastodon a superb, honest strive. That is most likely the results of two issues. First, I have never made the time. Second, I nonetheless really feel burned by among the previous Twitter training “chats” that turned from nice conversations to competitions of individuals making an attempt to make themselves appear insightful and or be the primary to make use of a brand new hashtag. It has been about ten years since I engaged in a type of “chats.” In the event you discover worth in them, nice! If I am utterly mistaken about Mastodon changing into Twitter training chats 2.0, please electronic mail me and inform me why I am mistaken.
Get Off My Garden!
I went forwards and backwards on whether or not or not I ought to publish this submit as a result of I concern that it would come throughout as “previous man yelling at youngsters on his garden.” That was not my intention. My intention was to supply some concepts for different methods in addition to social media to remain engaged in casual skilled studying. And if you wish to subscribe to my weekly publication, you may achieve this right here.
