May 26, 2024 – Missing the Twitter

As I am travelling through this life and learning its ups and downs, I am slowly but surely coming to terms with the loss of Twitter and my professional learning community. What are the stages of grief? They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. On reflection, I think I have arrived to acceptance.

In the middle of today’s death-scroll, I realized that I was looking for something that’s no longer there. I’ve been death-scrolling for awhile and never understood what I was looking for. Sadly, I was looking for me people. Pre-pandemic and beyond, social media was on the rise and educators were finding ways to connect.

At first, I joined Facebook (because I’m an old person… LOL) and then Twitter. It took awhile to join Instagram (I still don’t get it) and LinkedIN (not my personal favourite). SnapChat was questionable. I joined and quit that nonsense. BeReal is something my kid is on. I don’t get that even more!! And, I blog… a lot. I like it.

Anyway, I used to be part of a BC Education moderator group called #bcedchat. We focused on professional development and engagement every Sunday night at 7pm PST for one-hour a week. Our moderation team grew from 4-people (started from the 2 founders) to 10-people. We were a community within a community.

With the pandemic and the need to “get away” from technology and social media, #bcedchat eroded over time and is no longer. We ended #bcedchat when we returned to schools (after a horrid stint of remote/online learning). The learning community was broken and engagement low. Ending #bcedchat was inevitable.

Furthermore, Twitter took on a new ownership and branding. Folks online were not as collegial or friendly as they once were. The platform became more political and “unsafe.” Lots of my Twitter edu-friends left the platform. I wanted to a few times. From denial, anger, to bargaining, I stayed on Twitter/X doing #patiopics.

For some reason, I thought that I could maintain the feeling of my community by participating on this medium in this way. It’s not quite the same and I often found that the weekly edu-chat on Sundays would lift me up and give me the fuel to move on with the week. With that absent as well as the community, who’s there?

Admittedly, I met a tonne of edu-folks on Twitter. I met many people online from BC Education and beyond. It was weird to meet people in-person at professional development events as it created some social awkwardness . You know these folks from Twitter. That said, in-person conversations were more rich and meaningful.

Much like many things in the last 5-years, it’s about goodbyes and transitions. The death-scroll may equate to the depression stage of this long goodbye from my Twitter online professional learning community, but I think I am ready to move onto the next step on my social media and online existence. I love this video below.

Ironically, I am friends with (aka., social media connected to) her parents and her mom posted this video onto her Facebook site. I could not help myself to watch it and thus share in today’s blog post. I watched this video a few times as I was trying to woo myself a life towards an existence away from my phone and social media.

The video speaks about using the phone as a tool and in doing so improve mental health. Yes… this makes sense to me. I think for the next few weeks, I will attempt the changes proposed in this video (and the Guardian) about reducing my phone use because whatever I am looking for from my online crew is no longer there.

I accept this truth. I am also aware of my phone use and how time can be better spent on other things. I do like the blogging and weekly reflection. Tech use in this way will remain in my way of being. I started blogging to practice my writing skills but also it serves an opportunity to reflect, learn, and think. I do like doing this!!

Goodbye Twitter.

Hello to Week 1… (1) invite a friend; (2) get an alarm clock; (3) create a speed bump; (4) calculate screen time; and (5) set goals. Although I will not be documenting the experience via vlog as Makari did in her YouTube account, but I will blog about this three week experience to transform my phone use over time.