The Catch 22 Known as Social Media

 I, like many, enjoy social media.  In fact, I've always had a bit of a system.  My Facebook account is used for family and friends, Twitter is used for professional connections, and Instagram Reels keep me belly laughing.  It's a simple life that has always worked for me.  I keep my feeds clean of any nonsense and unfriend/unfollow people if I need to.  Until recently I can say that it's been a good experience.

A couple of weeks ago I left Twitter. I joined almost 12 years ago to expand my professional network of school administrators.  My activity did just that.  I connected with admins across the state and participated in professional discussion and outreach.  My tweets got some engagement and my engagement with other school admins served me as professional development.  This changed in the last few years.  My feed became dominated by negativity, obvious manufactured news stories, and an onslaught of disdain for teachers and schools as institutions.  I hear people say they feel their mental health gets damaged by social media and I have now begun to understand what that means.

Between some acquaintances and a couple of podcasters I listen to, Threads has emerged as a good alternative to X.  I connected my account through Instagram and dove right in.  It was immediately nicer than X and I was caught off guard by a simple white screen and no ads.  I few posts in, I posted the following:

The next day, the teacher apathy began flowing through my feed despite the tone of this post.  Constant doubting of the profession, calling out teachers, and teachers complaining about their schools were all in the mix.  That old feeling crept back in.  I began to scroll fast through what I saw as negative posts and wasn't finding much to be interested in.

I decided to take control of my feed.  I posted a positive celebratory message and thankfully it got a respectable amount of engagement.  Until I saw the first comment.

I tell other people to be the good they want to see and that the grass is greener where they water it and yada yada.  That is not going to work on this particular individual.

If we have yet to figure this out, social media is a catch-22.  We can blame the algorithms for what is fed to us and that would be fair.  But those algorithms have to have the content to feed us and that falls back on us.  If we only post our grievances, it will be used against us, and complaining is something we are really good at.

As I learn to use this platform and its filtering, I will still keep posting the positives.  I feel truly blessed to work in education and I know not everyone feels that way.  The least we can do is reach out to those struggling and help them serve their kids while helping themselves.  Social media is a catch-22 and cannot be our therapy.