Philosophers in the Twittersphere

Why aren't you on Twitter?

I admit that I've only joined recently. When one of my students invited me to join Twitter several years ago, I ignored the invitation. I thought it sounded like a waste of time. And there is certainly plenty of time-wasting to be done on Twitter. But there is also much to be gained for professional academics.

Here are three reasons that I find Twitter to be useful professionally:

1. It's another source of news and recommendations about calls for papers, upcoming conferences, new or forthcoming papers, new philosophy books, etc.
2. It's a way to share my own papers with other people who might be interested. Judicious use of keywords and hashtags help get your tweets in front of the right people.
3. It's a way to stay up-to-date on relevant issues in other disciplines. For me, this mostly means keeping up with scientific and political news related to climate change and geoengineering.

Yes, there are ways to do all of these things without Twitter. But personally, I find Twitter a more convenient way to get this kind of news. Everything's in one place. Everything comes in easy-to-skim, informative headline-length tidbits. Unlike email listservs (which I generally find annoying), these tweets don't come mixed with emails to which I have to respond. It's easy to find new sources of helpful and interesting information (e.g., by taking Twitter's suggestions about people to follow or by following people whom your friends are following, etc.).

As of right now, I think the biggest obstacle to Twitter's being professionally useful for philosophers is that relatively few of us use it. I only know of a few other Cocoon contributors on Twitter: Moti Mizrahi (@thinkjustdoit), Justin Caouette (@JustinCaouette), Clayton Littlejohn (@cmlittlejohn), Richard Brown (@onemorebrown), and Patrick Taylor Smith (@ptsUWphil). (Are there others?) Marcus set up an account (@marcusarvan), but he hasn't been tweeting from it—and that's fine. Even if you're just lurking on Twitter, I still think it's worth signing up.

Comments

[Justin Caouette]

I agree, all should sign up - even if only to lurk.

I have come across excellent articles and research that I likely would not have otherwise come across if I did not have an account. It's a great way to share your work with lots of others working on similar projects as well.

Here are a just a few endorsements for those interested in free will, moral psych, and ethics:
Tamler Sommers (@tamler), Zac Cogley (@zaccogley), Manuel Vargas (@unfilosofo), Maureen Sie (@mmsksie), Nicole Vincent (@drcolekat), Paul Bloom (@paulbloomatyale), Keith Laws (@Keith_Laws), Brian Earp (@briandavidearp), Julian Savelescu (@juliansavulescu), Katrina Sifferd (@KSifferd), Constantine Sandis (@csandis), Rani Lill Anjum (@ranilillanjum) and Nick Byrd (@byrd_nick).

There are thousands of philosophers online exchanging ideas and research. You can even retweet an article that you haven't read but sounds interesting so you know where to find it later when you have time to read it. It has been an excellent resource for me.

[Elisa Freschi]

I have not signed up so far and I would be interested in reading your view about the reason:
I am on Academia.edu, amazon_authors, googlescholars… and I have a blog, but I am *not* on facebook nor on anything similar, because I am very jealous of my private life and because I do not want to have to befriend old classmates and the like. I enjoy Academia.edu because it is only professional. What about your experience on twitter? Could you avoid acquaintanes and family members?

[Tuomas]

Plenty of us on Twitter, Rani probably has the most comprehensive list: https://twitter.com/ranilillanjum/lists/philosophers-on-twitter

I'm @ttahko, but I have to say that I find the flow of tweets to be too much to keep up with -- facebook is more manageable.

[Justin Caouette]

My experience on twitter has been very good so far. I have a personal account where I tweet sports and with friends and my professional account where I share research related articles and other useful information regarding the discipline, among other things.

You could avoid those you don't want to engage with by simply not following them. You can state clearly in your bio that it is a professional account for sharing research. This usually keeps them away.

I like it better than Academia because Academia isn't made for interacting quickly. It seems more for sharing polished work. Which is good, but twitter is more about sharing information and lots of it and asking quick and to the point questions. This sets it apart from facebook where people tend to be long-winded and often share lots of personal stories and pictures. I'm sure some people use twitter similarly, though the professionals I follow tend to tweet predominantly research related stuff.

I am a member of the sites you mentioned (though not amazon_authors yet). And of all of them I have benefited most from my blog and from twitter. Academia has been nice as well.

Anyway, if you decide to join I'd be interested in hearing how you like it once you're up and running.

-JC

[David Morrow]

Thanks for the lists, Justin and Tuomas.

Elisa: I've found it quite easy to maintain Twitter as an exclusively professional social media platform. I don't follow friends, family, news organizations, etc. I follow only people whose tweets are (at least sometimes) relevant to my professional interests.

[Marcus Arvan]

Thanks for reminding me that I need to start using mine, David! ;)

[Elisa Freschi]

Thank you for your answer, Justin, which also made me discover "A Philosopher's Take" ---which I found even more interesting. It is amazing how lively (Western) philosophers are, even online!

Thanks, David, that's encouraging.