Adam Robbins Education

Since Elon has taken over twitter there has been a noticeable change in direction. This has been an issue for people in a number of different ways. For some it’s the values and quality of the content, for others it’s the technical side with the way posts are ranked and the god awful search function. 

The UK’s patience with twitter ran out when he decided to get involved in stoking the hatred during the far right riots in early August. Lots of people have decided to take a fresh look at alternatives. The question on everyone’s lips is; will the change stick or will we find ourselves back on the site by september? 

I’m currently spending a lot of time thinking about group behaviour changes for a new project in September so it seemed like a good idea to try and put the two together and help me refine some of my ideas. 

Complex contagions.

Firstly it is important to realise that this kind of change is a complex contagion. Complex contagions, as defined by Damon Centola, are those that “require contact with multiple sources of reinforcement in order to be transmitted” It is not enough to be exposed to the idea, it is also important to know that others are doing it. I wrote this blog on the idea a few years ago. It will cover some of the basic terminology and concepts.

Four social mechanisms explain why complex contagions need multiple exposures to create adoption.

1. Strategic complementary 

The value of a behaviour increases with the number of others who adopt it. e.g. It’s pretty pointless being the only person who owns a fax machine.

2. Credibility

The more people who adopt a behaviour the more believable it is that the behaviour is beneficial or worth the cost.  e.g. Every fashion disaster in your old photos.

3. Legitimacy 

The more people who adopt a behaviour the greater the expectation is that others will approve of the decision to adopt and the lower the risk of embarrassment or sanction. e.g. It is a great idea to dance the Macarena at a wedding if a large group is already doing it.

4. Emotional

The excitement of adopting a behaviour increases with the numbers adopting it. e.g. One of us!

Through a complex contagion lens getting people to leave twitter and join Blue Sky or Threads is not that difficult. All it takes is people to post on twitter something like “This place is a big pile of shit I’m going to Blue Sky” When people see a few of these posts especially from nodes then they will invest the effort to try it out. That’s the first hurdle to overcome, and it was pretty low. 

Getting change to stick

The hard part is getting people to stay. To do that will take a few things. Firstly the network that is established will need to be large enough to have redundancy. When people engage in social media they do so for a variety of reasons. They may wish to learn, share or just chat. All of these need a large enough network to ensure that every time they scroll, comment or share there are people recognising that. There will be less content so one of the ways people can make this work is by being more active. There will be motivated people looking to build the network and if they provide discretionary effort to post, comment and like then it will significantly help the adoption of the behaviour. We can get fooled into thinking that key ‘eduinfluencers’ may play a greater role in securing the network due to their broader reach. While this will be true in getting people to try a new platform, which is a relatively simple contagion, getting people to stay will not be impacted by these same people as much. There was a concerted effort with an organised group of bloggers lead by Adam Boxer and Ruth Ashbee to establish Threads last year that supplied all the content exclusively, but without the audience it did not work. It will be the smaller, more personal connections that keep people coming back. 

I’m not sure if these other networks will build enough casual members to make the volume of interactions large enough to meet the tipping point and make the communities self-sustaining. I do know that everyone can play their part by being active, liking, commenting and sharing content to encourage others to do the same. I’m sure over the next few weeks there will also be a counter motion of ‘lets just stay on twitter and make the place better by being nicer. 

It will be interesting to see how it unfolds over the next few months. 

Personally I will try to use all three. I have the time and the motivation as social media is a key way I reach future clients. I owe a huge debt to edutwitter for keeping me in the teaching profession and letting me know there were others who agreed with me. It has given me the opportunity to travel and support schools and I am eternally grateful. 

PS Why no linkedIn?

Why didn’t I list LinkedIn as a potential site for relocation? Well have you used it? It’s not designed for discourse and engagement in issues. It tracks comments badly and is very self involved, most posts are self promotional in nature. So I don’t think it’s a serious candidate.