I fear that, especially now, scientists getting off Twitter where we can engage with the general public and instead siloing ourselves here is a very big mistake. We need to share what we do and why it's important with the broadest possible audience.
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I fully agree the importance to engage with the general public and that we shouldn’t cling to echo chambers, I just question whether Twitter remains the general public anymore compared to what it’s become and it is evolving into
I accept that. I'm not active there, or here really, any more. But I really want to fight right now, so maybe I'll try to make the case for science over there. Perhaps social media is not the way, but I can't help but think that if we were all back there fighting, it would be a start
I left twitter because the platform got worse in a multitude of ways that made my personal experience with it terrible. There are tradeoffs, but communicating with a broader audience is not worth spending time on an addictive platform that makes my life worse when I spend time on it
When I want to engage with an audience not on here, I can do it other ways (e.g., I wrote 2 ecology-focused articles for Petersen’s Hunting magazine last year)
I get that. Any one of us over there will do little, but I wonder about the whole community pushing back to sway narratives, thoughts, ideas, and so on. But you're right, the experience there is poor
Are the persuadable members of the public still on twitter? I still lurk there on a burner account where I follow a wide ideological spectrum. It seems like it's 95%+ people who want to own the libs now. I bet scientists can find a better bang for their buck than twitter or social media generally.
I really don't know. Someone just came in my office crying that they are losing their job, possibly the whole coop unit. I want to fight and this is not a good place to fight. This is a good place to console maybe though.
95% is an exaggeration, but it's bleak over there. Very little good faith or openness to be persuaded. It's hard to say how many persuadables are just lurking and so we don't see them. I think those people have mostly checked out, though.
The replies to your most recent tweet there are a perfect example of why it’s not an effective platform for discourse anymore. Everyone is rabid AF and often respond with misinformation and toxic talking points, at best. It’s great for gallows humor, terrible for genuine engagement and conversation
That’s so funny. I had exactly the opposite reaction. I thought it was great to engage with disagreement. Maybe they’ll go home and think it over and their perspective will broaden. Plus there was a lot of support
I agree. The majority of the public (include outside the US) and international scientists still post on. The issues at hand don’t resonate as much as it can. We need the discourse on Twitter/X, as much as it’s here.
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