Do you use Twitter for any academic purposes? How do you make it useful for you?
I know that some people use it for promoting their articles and maybe some discussion. But most academic twitter seems about as useful as 4chan. I.e., occasionally entertaining as a horror show, but mostly just horrifying.
I know some people take it seriously as a social force. But my sense is that the people who take it seriously are those with huge egos (a sort of Trump phenomenon maybe). Their use of Twitter just shows their narcissism.
Of course, I'm long in the tooth and high in cynicism. Maybe the enthusiasts see something that I am missing?
I often look at Academic Tweeting posts, I like learning form more experienced doctoral students or scholars who can post great tips in what we call "Twitter threads". I don't post much myself, because most of my following are people who aren't in academia.
I follow conferences that I'm unable to attend. The highlights of the meeting get tweeted. I also follow some folks who recommend good papers in my field. I don't follow very many people. Be selective!
I dabble, by which I mean I'm slowly growing a network of people with interesting things to say, and contributing occasionally.
I do find it useful- less for keeping up with my niche field of research, but much more so for keeping up with broad trends in my discipline and academia as a whole.
I rid myself of all social media a couple years ago (I was never very much into it) and you couldn't pay me to start using it again. Part of it is a matter of principal. Sometimes my work ends up on my employer's social media sites, and my grad students will sometimes post stuff from our research that gets a lot of attention. As far as two way engagement goes, social media is worse than awful: A bunch of mewling puking howling yawping horseshit, half of which is fomented by bots and bad actors, swirling around like a cyclone of sewage. It divides your attention, turns you into the equivalent of an ADHD riddled gnat with brain damage. No, I'm not cynical...
I use Twitter a fair amount for academic stuff. I tweet conferences *I* attend and then follow other people interested in those same sessions. I then get to see other conferences/events that I can't go to, but am likely to be interested in. I also follow other academics who tweet (productively--no whiners!) about responding to student writing, interesting assignment/course ideas, and hot new publications in my field.
I follow Twitter communities in some disciplines where I am interested in a field, but don't work there myself. I am fast to follow if I like someone's last few tweets, but quick to unfollow later if I'm not interested in what I see later on.
Overall, academic content represents less than half of my total Twitter usage, but I appreciate it a lot.
Quote from: fast_and_bulbous on July 08, 2019, 05:17:53 PM
I rid myself of all social media a couple years ago (I was never very much into it) and you couldn't pay me to start using it again. Part of it is a matter of principal. Sometimes my work ends up on my employer's social media sites, and my grad students will sometimes post stuff from our research that gets a lot of attention. As far as two way engagement goes, social media is worse than awful: A bunch of mewling puking howling yawping horseshit, half of which is fomented by bots and bad actors, swirling around like a cyclone of sewage. It divides your attention, turns you into the equivalent of an ADHD riddled gnat with brain damage. No, I'm not cynical...
So, tell us how you really feel!
I am a social-media troglodyte.
Quote from: downer on July 08, 2019, 04:30:45 PM
Do you use Twitter for any academic purposes? How do you make it useful for you?
I know that some people use it for promoting their articles and maybe some discussion. But most academic twitter seems about as useful as 4chan. I.e., occasionally entertaining as a horror show, but mostly just horrifying.
I know some people take it seriously as a social force. But my sense is that the people who take it seriously are those with huge egos (a sort of Trump phenomenon maybe). Their use of Twitter just shows their narcissism.
Of course, I'm long in the tooth and high in cynicism. Maybe the enthusiasts see something that I am missing?
While I am very far from a science Kardashian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashian_Index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashian_Index)) I regularly use Twitter to promote my papers and keep up with those of others, among other things. I also occasionally have some pretty good conversations, especially since they expanded to 280 characters.
At my institution social media presence is encouraged (as part of the wider outreach we are required to do), and I am pretty sure that (coeteris paribus) social media exposure is correlated with citations so, while not a must, academic tweeting is pretty recommendable.
Quote from: downer on July 08, 2019, 04:30:45 PM
Do you use Twitter for any academic purposes? How do you make it useful for you?
When I was teaching intro STEM classes to non-majors, I followed a lot of people teaching similar college classes and high school. Those folks would often show a demo or link to materials they were revising based on recent experience in a classroom. For new demo ideas and new video clips, I found Twitter useful enough to check my feed a few times as I revised the upcoming unit.
Following science outreach groups similarly was useful for pedagogical purposes and my own outreach activities.
For research, I found very little useful in Twitter. Following science news aggregators to skim headlines and click to the occasional blurb has taken the place of reading
Chemical and Engineering News and
APS News. Nothing has replaced reading real, peer-reviewed articles found through a targeted literature search for my current research project. As I get older with a better network, I am more inclined to contact a colleague to arrange lunch/dinner/mid-afternoon snack at the upcoming conference to chat as a way for more random thoughts related to the field.
I follow and read on Twitter but rarely post anything or even retweet. To some extent, I am just nervous about how absolutely anything can be misconstrued, piled on, and immortalized these days. There are a lot of people I follow in various fields, and I have learned a lot and have developed some new areas of interest. I think some of my own work has improved due to this exposure to better methods or more critical ways of thinking. Being able to follow conference hashtags is also helpful (doing that currently for one that I always have FOMO about).
Like most social media, though, I spend too much time worrying about whether what I'm about to contribute is important or written well enough (even here). Any tips for how to get better about that and connect more? I am mentioned once in a while if I have new research come out, and I think it's very valuable to share, but it's hard for me to feel comfortable posting about my own work! I always appreciate when others share theirs. I also feel guilty about unfollowing people once I've followed them. Maybe I'm just not cut out for social media.
As an elderly Millennial, I am on Twitter as is our custom. I use it for pseudo-academic purposes. I like following other academics in my field and those adjacent to mine for interesting tidbits of information. I also follow jokesters and other "famous" people.
My most engaged tweet to date has been a picture of a student throwing up off of a balcony with our university's slogan as a caption. I'm pretty proud of that.
I'm not an influencer or anything, but I enjoy following other academics in my field who are more influential--or who have more time to come up with entertaining content. Twitter has been a helpful way to follow conferences from afar or conference sessions from down the hall. I also follow and occasionally interact with accounts engaged in a few book and TV fandoms. I've encouraged, and even assigned students to explore academic or professional ways to use Twitter, and a few have found it enlightening, though most remain dedicated to Instagram (for now--something else will probably emerge soon). At least one of my former students now uses Twitter very efficiently to promote her freelance business. I also created a little [well known author] daily tweet that I mostly maintain during the academic year. It's up to about 600 followers now--more than I personally have.
So far, I haven't enraged anyone or endangered my career, but it's impossible to avoid politics on Twitter, and it can get dark. I avoid posting anything more controversial than opinions about my discipline (and even that can be political, these days), but with an election looming, I'm seriously considering creating a separate account to share with students.
When people say that they follow conferences on Twitter, what does that mean? Is there live video, or live commenting? Is there a conference organizer actively Tweeting everything that happens? Or is it commentary from the attendees?
How is all that better than looking at the conference program and the abstracts of the talks being given?
Downer, I usually follow the conference hashtag (e.g., #SIPS2019). Some conference goers will live tweet a summary of a session, others tweet pictures of slides, some might point out a great panel discussion and link to a paper or project site. I haven't attended a conference since I started following these kinds of hashtags, but I know people also use the hashtag to call attention or advertise an upcoming session for attendees. For the example I gave above, there are also meet ups, get togethers, and sessions that are scheduled more on the fly (during the conference), so that's a way to get folks together and also announce the sessions. Overall, I would say it gives a nice summary of what is going on at the conference, and there are ad hoc items at conferences (e.g., interesting or probing Q&A) that wouldn't be included in the program and abstracts.
Quote from: ab_grp on July 09, 2019, 08:04:07 AM
Like most social media, though, I spend too much time worrying about whether what I'm about to contribute is important or written well enough (even here). Any tips for how to get better about that and connect more?
Like with real world people, a good way to start connecting with people is to ask them for advice. I use my Twitter network regularly for technical questions, suggestions for references, and things like that. I have received lots of great suggestions - so many of us are siloed at our institutions where our research needs are so specific that we can't ask someone else in our department.
Sure, I have used my real life network to ask questions as well, but you can get some great crowd sourced answers and you aren't reliant on someone replying to e-mail promptly. If I want a quick answer on how to build something or a lab thing or if someone knows of a good R/LaTeX/whatever resource for something, then Twitter gives that to me and I get it from people who understand the context of my request.
There are enough well established scientists in my field who are on Twitter, so it isn't some backwater of useless academics or anything like that. Also, I got some free stuff from a company once when I tweeted about them. Bonus!
I use Twitter for academic purposes (and do not allow professional contacts to friend me on Facebook, which I use for family, friends, and apparently for cat pictures, politics and mom groups). I really enjoy it for a few reasons. First, I tweet new papers and other achievements, especially those of my students. I noticed that senior people in my university and elsewhere find out about these through twitter, so it gives me more visibility. I also tweet things like group photo socials, or from conferences. I follow colleagues with similar research interests, and have added papers to my reading list through their posts. I also retweet and respond to tweets on academic subjects I care about such as increasing the representation of and support for women and minorities, career-life balance issues, scientific integrity, etc. So for me, it has been a good professional promotion tool. I managed to lure a few other junior faculty to Twitter, so it seems we congratulate each other on it a lot?
Finally, I appreciate having a separate, science-only feed to escape the flood of politics, cat pictures and mom posts in my Facebook feed. Really, it is refreshing to have access to both at different points in time.
I've found Twitter and social media very useful for professional networking. I've had interactions on social media develop into real-life professional relationships and friendships. I've been invited to speak and have met collaborators with whom I've co-authored papers. I'm in the sciences.
Please, can we not say that social media is not "the real world"? For those of us who attend and follow conferences on Twitter, have useful and in-depth discussions there, use it to begin and further collaboration, to assist others and get assistance ourselves, it is very much the real world. Thanks.
I use Twitter for all of those things and more: to support initiatives by RTing CFPs or data; to help people find jobs; to promote my own work and that of colleagues; to send useful information to students and colleagues; to get and offer advice; and to stay up-to-date with colleagues and friends who don't use other kinds of social media. As someone who cannot travel often to conferences or other events, it enables me to remain part of the scholarly communities to which I belong. It's an essential tool for disabled scholars and others who can't travel or attend as many events as they would like, and by careful curation of who you follow and who you let follow you, it can be a welcoming and morale-boosting network.
It seems that part of the issue is whether there is a division of labor between Twitter and Facebook.
I see a lot of academic stuff on Facebook -- people promoting their work, having discussions, and all the rest of it. It is generally limited to one's FB friends, and that's OK. I find it very useful.
The distinctive feature of Twitter is that all one's posts are public. I'm definitely more cautious about public posting. I also see far less of the useful academic info sharing and discussion on Twitter than I do on FB. Maybe I am just not following the right people.
Maybe some disciplines are more on Twitter and others are more on FB?
(I do know people who link their accounts and seem to post everything to both, and Instagram too. They seem to crave attention.)
Quote from: downer on July 09, 2019, 02:45:47 PM
The distinctive feature of Twitter is that all one's posts are public. I'm definitely more cautious about public posting. I also see far less of the useful academic info sharing and discussion on Twitter than I do on FB. Maybe I am just not following the right people.
That's actually not entirely accurate. It is possible to set one's Twitter profile to Protected upon which anyone who wants to follow you has to request to do so. So its possible in that regard to have a more Facebook-like experience as you describe.
I find that my Twitter-self and my Facebook-self are much different from each other. Twitter makes it easy to retweet a pithy comment from someone else, which FB doesn't really do. Like, I wouldn't share (the equivalent of RT) a FB friend's cat picture, say. But that same person might tweet a funny think about their cat that I might RT if I wanted to share it with others. I guess Twitter, even if your tweets are Protected, is more public-facing whereas FB is more insular. Which is weird because one of the FB groups I'm in has almost a million members and people post VERY personal stuff there that they almost certainly wouldn't post to Twitter, even if their tweets were Protected.
Quote from: downer on July 09, 2019, 02:45:47 PM
(I do know people who link their accounts and seem to post everything to both, and Instagram too. They seem to crave attention.)
They are being efficient.
Quote from: bibliothecula on July 10, 2019, 01:38:32 PM
Quote from: downer on July 09, 2019, 02:45:47 PM
(I do know people who link their accounts and seem to post everything to both, and Instagram too. They seem to crave attention.)
They are being efficient.
Yep, that too.
Quote from: bibliothecula on July 10, 2019, 01:38:32 PM
They are being efficient.
http://explosm.net/comics/3283/
A few of my professional contacts told me a couple of years ago about how they went around Twitter celebrating people's academic accomplishments as a means of improving the atmosphere of our profession. It's a minor little thing, but I have followed their lead and get great joy out of clicking like on people's publications, defenses, jobs, tenure, etc. I know few of the people I click, but the support is my way of combating reviewer #2 with positive energy. There's a good sized contingent in my field who does this now.
And I use it for professional networking, conference work, news, publication announcements, etc.
I joined Twitter last year because several major conferences in my field tweet on it, and because job adverts are shared freely there, and because I wanted to have a larger/positive web presence. I follow academic colleagues, scholars I admire, and research institutions. I enjoy it more than I expected to. I skim my feed every morning and note anything important; during conferences I might check in around lunchtime and at dinner. I post sparingly and "mute" anyone who strays too far off the academic topics that motivated me to join.
I tried to keep Facebook as a personal account, but an increasing number of my friends are academics, so there is some cross-over there. I un-followed all my friends when I was in graduate school. They are still my friends, but my feed is empty; if I want to see how someone is doing, I type in their name and go to their page, just as I did when I was in undergrad and Facebook was new.
AR.
I love twitter but most of my use is not academic. I do run the twitter for an academic association though. I find it useful to see where people have published books or articles, and to share CFPs. (and to congratulate people, as mentioned upthread).
I have also (in the last 24 hours) had something silly go viral (15k retweets and counting), so I have more notifications than I know what to do with. This can be a good or bad thing depending on what kind of person you are.
I tweet about good books I'm reading, to share pictures related to my research, or to announce conferences, publications, or other things. I think one of the coolest things about twitter (unlike Facebook or other platforms) is that it allows for interacting with folks whose work I follow even if I don't know them personally. It's a great tool for connecting with people beyond my little corner of the discipline. I don't tend to chime in on the "academic twitter" conversations (like about the job market, PhDing, or #twitterstorians) but I often read those threads or connect to emerging scholars whose work excites me.
I have a long ongoing thread of "great history books I'm reading in 2019," which has been fun to create/add to.
All I have is a flip-phone and a FB account. Am I "behind the curve"? I suppose. Do I feel deprived? Not so much. But--as my account says--I'm mid-seventies and fading. What is this "tweeting" of which so many speak? Once upon a time I was a bird watcher before my eyesight got wonky. Is this all about ornithology?
Some tweets are by twerps, others not so much...
I have an account for my own work, and I do a separate NP account's Tweets for it, most of the time (and not very frequently for either).
Because I end up doing non-simple visuals, based on the NP's articles in its semi-annual mini-journal, and short photo-essay-like visuals for my own stuff, it can take a good bit of time to assemble a single Tweet, hence I don't do that many.
Very occasionally one gets some attention. I mostly do them just to maintain a bit of visual presence online, for myself, and because my PT job for the NP requires them.
I'd say each is semi-academic in it's own way; I start with a positive observation from the articles or from my own work, and set the visuals in conversation with them--or sometimes the reverse.
M.
Quote from: wellfleet on July 08, 2019, 05:22:09 PM
I use Twitter a fair amount for academic stuff. I tweet conferences *I* attend and then follow other people interested in those same sessions. I then get to see other conferences/events that I can't go to, but am likely to be interested in. I also follow other academics who tweet (productively--no whiners!) about responding to student writing, interesting assignment/course ideas, and hot new publications in my field...
Overall, academic content represents less than half of my total Twitter usage, but I appreciate it a lot.
Exactly my approach! Except, that I very rarely post anything personal. I prefer to keep my personal life away from social media.
Actually, I got the feeling that it matters to be on twitter in my field, since if you are not recognized and connected to some topics, you might not get cited or even noticed. Especially, if you're early-career and not well-established yet. The competition in the field is enormous. I do not have my own website, but I will probably need to have it by the end of the year. So... I post most of my research advances and interests on twitter.
Quote from: scamp on July 09, 2019, 01:41:21 PM
Quote from: ab_grp on July 09, 2019, 08:04:07 AM
Like most social media, though, I spend too much time worrying about whether what I'm about to contribute is important or written well enough (even here). Any tips for how to get better about that and connect more?
Like with real world people, a good way to start connecting with people is to ask them for advice. I use my Twitter network regularly for technical questions, suggestions for references, and things like that. I have received lots of great suggestions - so many of us are siloed at our institutions where our research needs are so specific that we can't ask someone else in our department.
Sure, I have used my real life network to ask questions as well, but you can get some great crowd sourced answers and you aren't reliant on someone replying to e-mail promptly. If I want a quick answer on how to build something or a lab thing or if someone knows of a good R/LaTeX/whatever resource for something, then Twitter gives that to me and I get it from people who understand the context of my request.
There are enough well established scientists in my field who are on Twitter, so it isn't some backwater of useless academics or anything like that. Also, I got some free stuff from a company once when I tweeted about them. Bonus!
I meant to say thanks for this suggestion, and I find Twitter very useful for similar reasons. I got a free stats book (maybe by retweeting? I can't even remember).
But this thread came to mind today because I had been thinking about trying to dive in and say something on Twitter, but academic Twitter has been a complete sh!tstorm in the fields I follow lately. Finally, today, I replied to a thread to suggest a correction to a sort of technical statement. Of course, I thought about it and rethought about it, trying to make sure I was correct first. But the thread author was very nice and thanked me, so I am glad I posted it. I am encouraged to try further interaction. I did actually tweet something the other day, but it was just a reply to a researcher I really admire regarding an update about her health. Those are certainly less nerve-wracking.
Quote from: ab_grp on August 07, 2019, 11:00:09 AM
Quote from: scamp on July 09, 2019, 01:41:21 PM
Quote from: ab_grp on July 09, 2019, 08:04:07 AM
Like most social media, though, I spend too much time worrying about whether what I'm about to contribute is important or written well enough (even here). Any tips for how to get better about that and connect more?
Like with real world people, a good way to start connecting with people is to ask them for advice. I use my Twitter network regularly for technical questions, suggestions for references, and things like that. I have received lots of great suggestions - so many of us are siloed at our institutions where our research needs are so specific that we can't ask someone else in our department.
Sure, I have used my real life network to ask questions as well, but you can get some great crowd sourced answers and you aren't reliant on someone replying to e-mail promptly. If I want a quick answer on how to build something or a lab thing or if someone knows of a good R/LaTeX/whatever resource for something, then Twitter gives that to me and I get it from people who understand the context of my request.
There are enough well established scientists in my field who are on Twitter, so it isn't some backwater of useless academics or anything like that. Also, I got some free stuff from a company once when I tweeted about them. Bonus!
I meant to say thanks for this suggestion, and I find Twitter very useful for similar reasons. I got a free stats book (maybe by retweeting? I can't even remember).
But this thread came to mind today because I had been thinking about trying to dive in and say something on Twitter, but academic Twitter has been a complete sh!tstorm in the fields I follow lately. Finally, today, I replied to a thread to suggest a correction to a sort of technical statement. Of course, I thought about it and rethought about it, trying to make sure I was correct first. But the thread author was very nice and thanked me, so I am glad I posted it. I am encouraged to try further interaction. I did actually tweet something the other day, but it was just a reply to a researcher I really admire regarding an update about her health. Those are certainly less nerve-wracking.
It is natural to be afraid of saying something silly, but I think of Twitter like a party - sometimes I say stupid things when talking with people at a party, but unless it is absolutely ridiculous or offensive, no one remembers. Now if all you say is still stuff, then people might remember that :-)
Quote from: scamp on August 07, 2019, 11:12:43 AM
It is natural to be afraid of saying something silly, but I think of Twitter like a party - sometimes I say stupid things when talking with people at a party, but unless it is absolutely ridiculous or offensive, no one remembers. Now if all you say is still stuff, then people might remember that :-)
I can definitely see that. Sometimes it really does seem like a party, and I love a lot of the ways in which people interact, debate, and just have fun. I guess I just feel like someone who has been looking through the window into a party, so no one knows me, and the last thing I want to do is jump in and be wrong. This is a bad analogy, of course, because that would be creepy anyway. Another issue is that I have followed some of these people for so long that I almost feel like I do know them (same for podcast hosts). Maybe after they know me a bit better I can be looser with the gab. It's funny because I am not a wallflower at all when it comes to debating (some may say arguing, at times) in person. I have lots to say and lots of topics that interest me. For some reason, social media just shuts me up in general. Just being able to post silly stuff would be a lot easier, because I have plenty of that to contribute!
One of the problems with Twitter is that all your tweets go down on your permanent record. People can dig up the silly things you said years after.
For the party analogy, I'd go with Snapchat. But I don't think there is any Academic Snapchatting, is there?
Quote from: downer on August 07, 2019, 11:50:26 AM
One of the problems with Twitter is that all your tweets go down on your permanent record. People can dig up the silly things you said years after.
For the party analogy, I'd go with Snapchat. But I don't think there is any Academic Snapchatting, is there?
I can't speak to Snapchat, but there are apps you can use to automatically delete all of your tweets after a certain period of time.
But I don't worry that much about it. Closeted bigots have to worry about their archives. Hypocrisy is an issue for celebrities, but I'm not important enough for anyone to want to dig through everything I said 6 or 7 years ago. If they did, they might find some typos, dated references and occasional mistakes but nothing scandalous.
But I'm also fortunate that I joined twitter as an adult with the idea that it was public. I could see taking advantage of the deleting features if there was documentation of my youth potentially linked to my professional identity.
I am pretty active on Twitter, where there is a large community or publicly-engaged historians. I learn about new digital projects, follow links to book reviews, and read righteous Twitter threads where Kevin Kruse drags Dinesh D'Souza. Some of my conferences have active Twitter streams where the conference hashtag anchors a backchannel conversation that spills out past the sessions. And I use Twitter in my classes sometimes with a course hashtag. It is a useful tool--if you know how to use it.
Years ago, my students set up a lab facebook page and a twitter account. We were active on FB but not as much on twitter. It was fun and a little strange when people at conferences would mention my lab and things we were posting there. I'm starting to get into twitter, I am still learning but I tweet as my lab. Still, we have more followers on FB so far.
A well-known tool in my field has a Twitter account and clearly paid for a large number of Russian followers who retweet him... and nobody else. LMAO. We all know and laugh at the guy. He frequently brings up his number of followers in arguments (Well, I have 25K Twitter followers, so I must be more important...type of thing)... as if we all couldn't fork out a few bucks to have that many.
Don't be that guy.
I used to be pretty active on Twitter, but lately I have disengaged because the fields that I follow seem to be devolving into cliques. Now I'd much rather keep in touch with my fields by reading journals. Twitter can be amusing and useful for networking, but much of what's written there should be taken with a large grain of salt.
The cliquishness and clashing within the fields that I follow seemed to have died down but do flare back up now and again. There are clearly some big issues to deal with, but Twitter probably isn't the place for nuanced discussions about potentially explosive topics. It also gets discouraging to see scientists post that if you follow [person] you should not follow them.
As far as followers, I am one of those who has X followers and follows 8X people. So, I am clearly not much of an influencer. However, I would like to report here that I recently posted another (reply) tweet and received 10X more likes than any of my previous posts or replies (while still under 50), so clearly I am improving. If I ever get brave enough to post an original tweet (or, could I dare dream, a thread), I will feel accomplished (and probably get 0 likes or retweets, or may cause a war on Twitter).
In all seriousness, I do appreciate the prolific academic tweeters who spread so much information and connect many ideas and people.
Quote from: ab_grp on September 05, 2019, 03:41:00 PM
The cliquishness and clashing within the fields that I follow seemed to have died down but do flare back up now and again. There are clearly some big issues to deal with, but Twitter probably isn't the place for nuanced discussions about potentially explosive topics.
HOF material, by any measure.
You can get fired for tweeting the wrong thing. Better to err on the safe side and say anything controversial offline (behind closed doors, not even text or email which can and will be used in a court of law).
Quote from: pedanticromantic on September 05, 2019, 08:44:18 AM
A well-known tool in my field has a Twitter account and clearly paid for a large number of Russian followers who retweet him... and nobody else. LMAO. We all know and laugh at the guy. He frequently brings up his number of followers in arguments (Well, I have 25K Twitter followers, so I must be more important...type of thing)... as if we all couldn't fork out a few bucks to have that many.
Don't be that guy.
https://www.twitteraudit.com/
I realize that this thread has not seen action in a bit, but I think that my question fits well here and does not deserve its own new topic. I am wondering what forumites think about the following situation. A working paper (that has presumably not been through peer review yet) was posted on Twitter by someone in the associated field (not the author). A particular figure (bar chart) was highlighted that was intended to show disparities in such and such. It looks to me as though there is a mistake in one part of the figure. Let's say the paper looks at video game usage at ages 10 (part a of figure) and 15 (part b of figure), each of which are broken down by ethnicity. To me, parts a and b look exactly alike (which would be unusual), and I think that the author may have inadvertently put the same figure in twice. As I noted, the author did not post the paper and was not tagged but appears to be on Twitter. Do you have any suggestions about contacting the author? This paper has the potential to be making the rounds quickly and widely, and I would like to give the author a heads up in case the figure is incorrect and can be changed before it goes too viral. If I were the author, I would want someone to contact me about this, but I hesitate. I am fairly shy about reaching out to people I don't know. Plus, I could be wrong (though I still think it's okay to inquire about it in case it helps the author head off issues if the wrong figure circulates). Do I email the author? DM the author on Twitter? Keep it to myself given that someone else will likely point it out on Twitter soon enough? What would forumites prefer? I would be interested in your thoughts on this type of situation in general. Are you okay with being contacted by another professional through DMs? For what reasons yes or no?
I'd say nothing wrong with emailing the author (and this is why I'm wary of sharing drafts of articles before review....)
I came across this today which some might find helpful regarding tips and tricks for Science Twitter. Should be applicable to other disciplines too.
https://blogs.plos.org/scicomm/2020/04/15/tips-on-using-science-twitter-during-covid-19/
I have a "professional" account where I talk about conferences, news from the research group, show looping GIFs of our experiments, etc. I don't use my name in the title, but it's a reference to what I do and to the university.
I have another one under my own name that is disclaimered up one side and down the other. That one is very different.
I tweet for a lab rather than under my own name, but this limits me because the persona of our lab account doesn't involve liking cat pictures or make any funny comments or retweeting anything political or celebrity related. So I just tweet and retweet about interesting new research studies and promote the work of students in the lab. Actually this twitter account is most useful to me because the new studies I tweet about are the ones I would like to study again in more detail and so they basically are stored right there in the lab account.
Right now there is so much COVID posts in my feed that I don't feel like my account has anything to contribute to so I haven't been tweeting much in the last month or so. A student in our group has been tweeting about a paper rejection and some fellowship rejections and all the food she is eating while by herself in isolation. My account doesn't post about food either.