I recently had a fascinating conversation with a group of bright PhD students who were net enthusiastic about social media but felt great about watching & learning but fearful of chiming in. If that describes you, what holds you back from posting? And as we move to this new platform, is there anything that we can do to facilitate your participation?
The types of issues that the students brought up included things like fear that their posts might be wrong or misinterpreted.
@NicoleCRust Fear of saying something wrong and making a fool of myself + contributing to the ever-growing mountain of misinformation.
Fear that maybe I misunderstood what the person was talking about when something doesn’t make that much sense to me.
Also sometimes I feel like what I wanted to say has already been articulated so much better by someone else, so no point in repeating.
But I’m trying to overcome this and post more, Mastodon seems much friendlier compared to the 🐥
@NicoleCRust Yes, I find it easier to write there because I can spend a lot of time researching the information. It also helps that I can write as much as I want to explain myself, so I feel like I can integrate the information better into a wider context.
Yes, at least for me it would be an incredibly helpful learning opportunity if more established folks took the time to engage with the topics of those less established and it would reduce some of the anxiety around it.
@neurofrontiers That makes complete sense, but I’ve never thought about it. Thank you! I’ll keep that in mind going forward. I hope others will as well.
TL;DR for more senior folks: It’s helpful to engage with more junior researchers on the topics they are already posting about, where they’ve already gained expertise. It’s much more difficult for them to engage with you (of course).
@NicoleCRust Thank you as well!
@neurofrontiers That's really helpful; thank you. Brainstorming ... you have a blog so I assume you are less inhibited to post about things you feel well-informed about. Would it be helpful if more well established folks engaged/responded with the topics of individuals who are less established?