Worn out by Twitter

No dispute:  Twitter can be a good venue for professional development.  It’s super-fun to find educational experts to follow—there are so many smart people in the Twitter universe, happy to offer short bits of inspiration and so, so many new ideas to implement. 

Or, wait:  So many new ideas we wish you had the time and energy to implement.

Not long ago, I found myself worn out by Twitter.  Beyond the obvious stuff—too many advertisements, too much political mumbo-jumbo—I was weary of the “professional development” part of it, too.

Yep.  I said it. 

It just felt so…  lecture-y.  Like a finger wagging at the things I should be doing.  To keep my feed clean, I had followed only prominent educator voices, but that meant it’s all I saw—many, many Tweets a day, all feeling like short little chastisements:   “We need to start…” or “If only everyone would…”  “Good teachers always…”

Of course I agree with the message of these tweets, but they felt, increasingly, like a gaggle of woodpeckers—relentless, ruthless, focused on chipping away at my confidence.  It made me feel inadequate, like I wasn’t doing anything right.  Especially on a bad day, where I felt I hadn’t done a bit of good that day, to scroll through Twitter and see my screen full of coulda-shoulda-woulda advice was like a kick in the face.  I’d think, “Is everyone else always doing awesome things?  Is every other educator out there is always offering fabulous choice books… always offering students a platform for voice… always advocating relentlessly for justice in our education system?” 

I’d wonder, Do any of these Tweeters ever have a bad day?  Are there any days they don’t trailblaze?  Are there any days they just do the best they can, and be grateful for it?  Do they ever go home exhausted and defeated? 

Resentment followed, because many of the people I followed weren’t actually doing the day-to-day work that I—and my colleagues—were trying to do.  Not every day, they weren’t.  They may have done it at some point in their careers, and when they did, they were undoubtedly excellent at the work, but they weren’t doing it now.  Not on the five thousandth rainy day of the year; not on the day there were sixteen interruptions or schedule changes; not on the day all students were bent over a Chromebook, squinting their way through yet another mandated standardized test.

I thought about taking a Twitter break, so as to give myself a rest from the judgy-ness.  Then my husband offered an alternative.  “You need to balance it out,” he said.  “For every educator you follow, find someone who isn’t an educator.  Find someone, perhaps, who tweets something super-funny every day.  Or something different or new.  Something that won’t hit you over the head with teaching and leadership stuff.”

What a great solution.  Now I follow just as many non-educator Tweets as I follow educator ones.  Comedians.  Musicians.  Chefs.  Athletes.  Bloggers and parents and artists and all sorts of people—anyone and anything that doesn’t saturate me with things I should be doing differently.   And when I find myself feeling inadequate, I just stop, because that’s when I know I’ve hit my saturation point, and it’s time for moderation. 

Social media continues to confront, contest, flummox, and frustrate me.  I haven’t yet found a place I feel comfortable in it.  As with anything, though, the answer is undoubtedly balance—lots and lots of balance.