• Skip to Content
  • Skip to Sidebar
IU

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington IU Bloomington

Menu

ScIUConversations in Science at Indiana University

  • Home
  • Home
  • About ScIU
  • Write with Us!
  • Contact ScIU
  • The Writers and Editors of ScIU
  • ScIU in the Classroom
  • Annual Science Communication Symposium
  • Search

What social media has taught me about science

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Chloe Holden

This image is of a first person view of a desk with an opened lined notebook on the left, a laptop open in the center, a person's left hand is holding a cup of coffee, and the right hand is holding a phone opened with the Facebook login screen.
Image credit: FirmBee on Pixabay

Science communication on social media largely happens through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (you can find the ScIU blog on all three platforms), but in reality, it extends beyond these three primary sites into platforms such as TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, and more. On any one of these platforms, people from around the world are able to form digital communities where they can talk, educate, learn, advocate, and make new friends. I have been the Social Media Chair for ScIU for over a year now, and in that time, I have learned quite a lot about science communication from social media.

The first thing I learned is that having a presence on social media is a lot of work, but it can also be very rewarding. Kudos to all those influencers who built their career from 0 followers. To you and me, it might look like they’re just taking photos of themselves for Instagram or running their mouth on Twitter, but there’s a lot of prep work and effort that goes behind a post. For a science communication blog, our goal is to stick to the facts, and in order to do that, we have to do the research behind every link that we post to make sure we aren’t spreading false information AND still keep readers up to date with all the cool information coming out in the world of science. Social media can also be a dangerous tool for spreading fake news and false information. Once I realized this, I had to figure out a way to get some help filtering through everything. So, with the additional goals of education and outreach, ScIU started the Social Media Undergraduate Internship Program last fall. Navigating social media and getting your science news (rather than fake news) from digital platforms, especially during this pandemic, is so important that one of our interns even wrote about it last semester. 

An infographic is depicting how social media connects people through multiple digital devices.
Image credit: jmexclusives on Pixabay.

The second thing I learned is that social media connects researchers in a way that traditional academic communication (like emails and networking at conferences) could never accomplish. Just as an observer on my personal account, I have seen at least three collaborations start as Twitter rants and turn into full-blown publications. One of the most relevant examples to my own research is when one researcher was venting on Twitter about her frustrations with the eye-tracking technology being used in her study on capuchin monkeys. One year later, she published a comprehensive guide on eye-tracking with primates with collaborators from this Twitter thread! Now, my best advice to prospective graduate students is to look through Twitter and Instagram and see what sort of presence the programs and people they want to work with have. You can learn so much more about your future advisor and what kind of mentor they’ll be based on their social media presence than their university page. Not everyone is on social media, but if they are, how they conduct themselves on various platforms is very indicative of who they really are as a person. Someone who takes advantage of the semi-anonymity of the internet to make some Reviewer 2-esque[1] comments is not the type of person you would want for a mentor.

A meme with a school bus (labelled as a researcher proudly submitting a paper) driving over a train track, and then getting hit by the train who is labelled as Reviewer 2.
Image from makeameme.org.

Finally, as Social Media Chair, I spend a lot of time scrolling through multiple platforms to stay up to date and have gotten to see how researchers, grad students, and educators grow, change, and experience hardship and happiness. We always hear that scientists are people too, but with social media, you get to actually see it. It’s not uncommon for a graduate student to receive advice that we should keep our social media platforms strictly academic because if we talk about anything else, it could cost us a job in the future. Some people even keep separate accounts, one personal and one professional, to avoid any issues. But the truth is, scientists have identities outside of the academy, and no one should have to worry about future job prospects when sharing any or all aspects of their life on social media. 

As I say to the kids on my “Skype a Scientist” calls, you can find science all around you if you look hard enough. Even in social media. 

An infopgrahic with cartoon images of 30+ people and lines connecting between them all to demonstrate how the digital world connects people from all over the world.
Image credit: GDJ on Pixabay.

[1]The Reviewer 2 stereotype in academia is an aggressive bully keen on hurting someone’s feelings rather than providing constructive criticism during the peer review process.

 

Edited by Vaishnavi Muralikrishnan and Evan Leake

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related

Filed under: General ScienceTagged #Education, #scicomm, outreach, science communication, science education, Science Outreach

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Additional Content

Search ScIU

Categories

Tag cloud

#Education #scicomm animal behavior anthropology archaeology astronomy astrophysics Biology biotechnology Black History Month brain cannabinoids cannabis Chemistry climate change conservation coronavirus COVID–19 Diversity in Science diversity in STEM Ecology environment evolution geology history and philosophy of science infectious disease Interdisciplinary Interview Mental Health methods microbiology neuroscience outreach physics Plants primates psychology Research science communication science education Science Outreach science policy Statistics STEM women in STEM

Subscribe

Receive a weekly email with our new content! We will not share or use your information for any other purposes, and you may opt out at any time.

Please, insert a valid email.

Thank you, your email will be added to the mailing list once you click on the link in the confirmation email.

Spam protection has stopped this request. Please contact site owner for help.

This form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Current Contributors

  • Log in
  • SPLAT
  • ScIU Guides

Indiana University

Copyright © 2022 The Trustees of Indiana University | Privacy Notice | Accessibility Help

  • Home
  • About ScIU
  • Write with Us!
  • Contact ScIU
  • The Writers and Editors of ScIU
  • ScIU in the Classroom
  • Annual Science Communication Symposium
College of Arts + Sciences

Are you a graduate student at IUB? Would you like to write for ScIU? Email sciucomm@iu.edu


Subscribe

Subscribe By Email

Get every new post delivered right to your inbox.

This form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

 

Loading Comments...