Examining My Biases Toward Social Media

    This may be the teacher in me, but I find myself in the habit of examining my biases. As an educator, examining biases and practicing self-reflection are important aspects of culturally responsive teaching—where educators adjust instruction in culturally and linguistically responsive ways in order to acknowledge and accommodate what learners bring into the learning environment. As an educator, when I design lessons and activities, I try to think about the biases I have and how my perspectives may affect my students. I need to make sure that the learning takes into consideration their academic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds and design learning that collects their prior knowledge about a topic and is relevant to them. I believe there is some value in applying culturally responsive practices to instructional design as well, so if your curious, check out 5 Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies. 

    I find self-reflection and examining potential biases I may have toward a topic to be an effective practice when I begin new learning. When I identify them, it helps me to work towards dispelling them. As I was reading the first chapter of Networked, Rainie and Wellman (2012) mention a few commonly held beliefs about social media and technologies that their research has found to be false. I realized that my views on social media at least partially aligned with some of these false beliefs.  

I have seen a room full of people on their phones and thought the same thing..

“We are disconnected,” “this is not community,” “everyone is isolated on their phones,” “what about having real conversations and acknowledging others who are right in front of us.” 

Have these thoughts, or similar thoughts, ever popped into your head?  Our experiences influence the way we perceive and feel toward something and in this case, I believe my limited experiences with social media have not demonstrated the opportunities social media offers to connect and engage with each other.  

I used to think…  

People on their phones were isolating themselves from social connection and reality and that people are hooked on and ‘glued’ to their gadgets.  

Now I think… 

“People are not hooked on their gadgets—they are hooked on each other” (Rainie and Wellman, 2012, p. 6). While the type of connection and the space in which the connections are occurring has changed, individuals are still connecting. Even if it is texting, tweeting, commenting—it is conversation and it is communicating.  

I used to think...

Connecting online is limiting and less personal than having an in-person conversation or attending a social group.  

Now I think... 

I believe a lot of my biases stem from not understanding how complex and diverse social media can be and what it has become now. Rainie and Wellman (2012) state that “many meet their social, emotional and economical needs by tapping into sparsely knit networks of diverse associates rather than relying on tight connections to a relatively small number of core associates” (p.12). The different social network that has emerged—the networked operating system (Rainie and Wellman, 2012, p. 9)—offers more diverse connections that allow individuals to engage in ways they were not previously possible before. People can also reach a population or network of people that are geographically dispersed. The variety and diversity of this networked operating system allows users choice to meet their specific social needs and at more flexible times. It’s like a glorified digital community centre catalogue, you choose what network you want to join and when you will connect and to what extent you will participate. This is the opposite of limiting, it's liberating. 

I used to think...

Being a part of multiple social networks can be taxing—both socially and sometimes emotionally depending on the content or conversations we are engaging in. I experience the social taxing nature of social media—multiple Facebook messages to respond to, or the overload of valuable information posted on LinkedIn that I feel I need to act on or do something with. Sometimes, belonging to professional groups can add a new level of extra work—because there is always something to improve upon or learn.  

Now I think...

This continues to be the reality of many social media users and the demands remain a potential stressor of social media. However, Rainie and Wellman (2012) share that now people tend to have more social ties and these can be reached easily with technology and managed with effective time and attention allocation (10).  

    My favourite part of the process of examining my biases is seeing how they are already dispelling themselves as I read, learn and experience social media in different contexts. My definitions of social media and how I understand it are changing and the beliefs I held going into my learning are being shaped, remodelled, erased or even thrown right out the window.  

References 

Burnham, K. (2020, July 31). 5 Culturally responsive teaching strategies. https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/culturally-responsive-teaching-strategies/ 

Rainie, L. & Wellman, B. (2012). Networked: The new social operating system. The MIT Press.