Social Justice in a Post-Truth World

This post, co-authored with Alec Couros, originally appeared on the Canadian Education Association Blog.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) recently declared “post-truth” to be the 2016 Word of the Year. According to the OED, “post-truth” relates to or denotes “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

In recent years, we’ve clearly seen the confusion that results from so-called “fake news,” and the at-times devastating effects of misinformation. In December 2016, for instance, the spread of the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory (which has been proven false), related to U.S. Democrats’ supposed involvement in a child-sex ring, eventually culminated in a man opening fire in a restaurant that was supposedly linked to the ring; the full account of the spread of the lie is traced on the Pizzagate Wikipedia page (note that Wikipedia articles are crowd-edited – this page was accurate as of February 8th, 2017, but may have been updated since then). Unfortunately, social media often acts as a vehicle for spreading lies; in particular, racist, sexist, and homophobic posts circulate freely and are legitimized by those who share them.

The digital spaces in which our students live, learn, and play are not immune to or sheltered from hateful posts and images. Consequently, today, perhaps more than ever before, we as educators have a serious responsibility to address social justice issues in online spaces – even if the resulting discussions are uncomfortable or controversial.

Education Canada Magazine

Image courtesy of EdCan Magazine

SILENCE CAN SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

As teachers, we know that if misbehaviour isn’t addressed, students will quickly learn that the behaviour is acceptable. The same goes for the false or hateful content that kids find in the digital world. If no one speaks up, children will have no reason to question the hurtful things that they see – and no reason not to join in. When it comes to social justice issues, silence is complicity.

Of course, educators can’t be present in every online space, but we can model ethical, justice-oriented behaviour in the digital spaces we do occupy, which could mean anything from posting about current social justice issues on a personal blog to sharing articles or resources that promote equity on a class Twitter account. We might also bring online spaces into the classroom for critique and comment, perhaps by screencapping a problematic Facebook post and working as a class to construct an appropriate response. Without these actions, we risk raising a generation of young people who have neither the skills nor the desire to fight back against injustice or to work toward a better world.

MISINFORMATION IS A DANGEROUS THING

Digital literacy, and in particular the ability to discern whether an online source is trustworthy and accurate, has always been important, but as the Pizzagate example shows, it is even more critical in a post-truth world because the consequences of believing falsehoods can be dire. Misinformation and fake news can be used to perpetuate hateful and/or hurtful actions toward particular groups; for instance, the fictional “Bowling Green Massacre was used by the Trump administration to justify banning all refugees and immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries. Additionally, as Garry Kasparov tweeted, “The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” That is, sometimes the spread of fake news is intended to tire us out to the point of no longer questioning what we are told, which can be exceptionally dangerous (look into the Milgram Shock Experiment for clear evidence of this).

Thus, as educators, we must learn how to evaluate and verify digital sources so that we can teach our students to do the same. This involves learning about and then teaching students tips and tools that can be used to identify problematic or false content, and bringing digital articles and images into the classroom for critique. For example, students might be asked to fact-check a list of terror attacks that U.S. president Donald Trump has claimed were not adequately reported by the media, in order to determine the veracity of the claim (hint: there are several major issues with the list). Of course, in order to bring these ideas into the classroom, it is necessary for educators to seek out, explore, and hopefully address these issues in online spaces themselves.

In a post-truth, digital world, it’s no longer acceptable for educators to sit on the sidelines claiming to be neutral. Hateful, hurtful misinformation can no longer be left unexamined and unchallenged. Rather, as teachers, we have the responsibility to fight back and to show our students how to do the same.

What Kind of (Digital) Citizen?

This post was co-written with Alec Couros and also appears on his blog.

This week (June 5-11) we’ll be hosting a couple of events and activities related to digital citizenship as part of a series of DigCiz conversations. Specifically, we’d like to deepen the discussion around digital citizenship by asking how we might move from a model of personal responsibility (staying safe online) to one that takes up issues of equity, justice, and other uncomfortable concepts. That is, we want to think about what it might look like to think about digital citizenship in a way that more closely resembles the way we often think about citizenship in face-to-face contexts, where the idea of being a citizen extends beyond our rights and also includes our responsibility to be active and contributing members of our communities. Of course, that’s not to say that face-to-face citizenship is by default more active, but we would argue that we tend to place more emphasis on active citizenship in those settings than we do when we discuss it in its digital iteration.

So…in order to kick things off this week, we wrote this short post to provide a bit more background on the area we’ll be tackling.

Digital Citizenship 1.0: Cybersafety

The idea of digital citizenship is clearly influenced by the idea of “Cybersafety,” which was the predominant framework for thinking about online behaviours and interactions for many years (and still is in many places). This model is focused heavily on what not to do, and it relies on scare-tactics that are designed to instill a fear of online dangers in young people. This video, titled “Everyone knows Sarah,” is a good example of a cybersafety approach to online interactions:

The cybersafety approach is problematic for a number of reasons. We won’t go into them in depth here, but they basically boil down to the fact that students aren’t likely to see PSAs like this one and then decide to go off the grid; the digital world is inseparable from face-to-face contexts, especially for today’s young people who were born into this hyper-connected era. So this is where digital citizenship comes in: instead of scaring kids offline or telling them what not to do, we should support them in doing good, productive, and meaningful things online.

From Cybersafety to Digital Citizenship

Luckily, in many spheres, we have seen a shift away from cybersafety (and towards digital citizenship) in the last several years, and this shift has slowly found its way into education. In 2015, we were hired by our province’s Ministry of Education to create a planning document to help schools and districts with the integration of the digital citizenship curriculum. The resulting guide, Digital Citizenship Education in Saskatchewan Schools, can be found here. In the guide, we noted:

“Digital citizenship asks us to consider how we act as members of a network of people that includes both our next-door neighbours and individuals on the other side of the planet and requires an awareness of the ways in which technology mediates our participation in this network. It may be defined as ‘the norms of appropriate and responsible online behaviour’ or as ‘the quality of habits, actions, and consumption patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities.’”

In the Digital Citizenship Guide, we also underlined the importance of moving from a fear- and avoidance-based model to one that emphasizes the actions that a responsible digital citizen should take. For instance, we suggested that schools move away from “acceptable use” policies (which take up the cybersafety model) and work to adopt “responsible use” policies:

Moving Beyond Personal Responsibility

While the move from cybersafety to digital citizenship has helped us to shift the focus away from what not to do online, there is still a tendency to focus digital citizenship instruction on individual habits and behaviours. Students are taught to use secure passwords, to find a healthy balance between screen time and offline time, to safeguard their digital identity. And while all of these skills are important pieces of being a good digital citizen, they revolve around protecting oneself, not helping others or contributing to the wider community.

So we’d like to offer a different model for approaching the idea of citizenship, one that moves beyond the individual. To do this, we have found it helpful to think about citizenship using Joel Westheimer’s framework. Westheimer distinguishes between three kinds of citizens: the personally responsible citizen, the participatory citizen, and the justice oriented citizen. The table below helps to define each type.

Table taken from Westheimer’s 2004 article, linked above.

Using this model, we would argue that much of the existing dialogue around digital citizenship is still heavily focused on the personally responsibility model. Again, this is an important facet of citizenship – we need to be personally responsible citizens as a basis for the other types. But this model does not go far enough. Just as we would argue that we need participatory and justice-oriented citizens in face-to-face contexts, we need these citizens in online spaces as well.

So here’s our challenge this week: Is there a need to move beyond personal responsibility models of digital citizenship? And if so, how can we reframe the conversation around digital citizenship to aim towards the latter two kinds of citizen? How might we rethink digital citizenship in order to encourage more active (digital) citizenship and to begin deconstructing the justice and equity issues that continue to negatively affect those in online spaces, particularly those who are already marginalized in face-to-face contexts? And what are the implications of undertaking this shift when it comes to our individual personal and professional contexts, especially when it comes to modelling online behaviours and building (digital) identities/communities with our students?

These are big questions, and we certainly don’t have the answers yet – so we’d love to hear from you! Please consider commenting/responding in your own post, or come join us as we unpack these complex topics during the events listed below.

This week’s events:

  • On Tuesday, June 6 at 3 pm EDT, we will be hosting a webinar to discuss this week’s topic. If you are interested in being a panelist, please email us at alecandkatia@gmail.com – we’d love to have you join us! The Webinar will take place via Zoom.Us – to join as an attendee, just click this link.
  • On Wednesday, June 7 at 8 pm EDT, we will be moderating a Twitter chat with a number of questions related to this week’s topic. To join, please connect with us on Twitter (@courosa and @kbhildebrandt) and follow the #DigCiz hashtag.

Surviving dissertation isolation

This post was originally published in Reflections on Academic Lives: Identities, Struggles, and Triumphs in Graduate School and Beyond, edited by Staci M. Zavattaro and Shannon K. Orr, as one of several short pieces offering advice for grad students navigating the (often confusing) waters of academia. If you’re interested in reading more, you can find the book here.

As a PhD candidate in the nebulous “writing phase” of my dissertation, I am frequently offered unsolicited advice:

You know, you just need to get it out. You can make it pretty later.

Have you read [insert dense, complicated theorist here]…?

And my absolute favourite:

The best dissertation is a finished dissertation.

To be fair, much of this advice comes from people who have actually gone through the ugly doctoral process and come out alive on the other side – often even with faculty positions. And they do have many good tips about chapter structure and the revision process and how to prep for your defense. But what no one tells you, what everyone fails to mention, has nothing to do with research or analysis or formatting your references properly — but with something so much worse.

I’ve heard it said that no one talks about just how painful it is to give birth because if they did, no one would get pregnant ever again. I’m beginning to think that there is a similar cone of silence around the process of finishing a dissertation – what happens in your writing phase stays in your writing phase, so to speak. But the best defense is a good offense, so I’m breaking this weird unspoken rule and letting the big secret out so that future doctoral students might prepare better than I did: The worse part of writing your dissertation is the utter and complete isolation that it brings. 

Truly: writing up the document that will one day land you those coveted letters behind your name will make you feel totally alone. It will feel like being the lone passenger on a one-way mission to Mars, or like that poor guy who befriends a volleyball in Castaway. In the early days of your doctoral program, you may have taken classes and befriended other students. But once you’ve moved past your coursework, it can be easy to lose touch with others as you become mired in the writing process. You may even find yourself avoiding friends, family, committee members, and (especially) your supervisor in order to dodge the ever-present question: So, how’s the writing coming?

Because let’s face it: for many doctoral students, the answer is not well. And the longer it takes, the more likely you are to start feeling like perhaps there has been some major mistake: perhaps you don’t have what it takes after all, perhaps you are merely an imposter in the world of academia, a fraud, a failure, a disappointment…

And when that happens, it’s best to be prepared, so here are some (hopefully) helpful hints for surviving dissertation isolation:

First, remember that while you may feel like you’re the only inhabitant of a remote town called Dissertation Ville, you are not alone. More importantly, you are not a failure (sometimes it helps to repeat that point, or even to make a sticky note reminder to put up on your bathroom mirror).

Then, find allies. Those other students you met in your classes? They are likely feeling the same way, so be persistent about staying in touch (or reconnecting) with these people. If you are geographically isolated, connect online. There are wonderful, supportive communities out there – try #phdchat on Twitter as a start. 

Writing your dissertation doesn’t need to feel like travelling down a lonely desert road. [Photo credit: adifferentbrian: Flickr via Compfight cc]

And don’t forget about faculty. Unless you and your supervisor have some serious bad blood, this person is likely one of your best allies. In my own case, I was so used to doing everything school-related by myself that I was somewhat embarrassed to let my supervisor know that I was struggling, and I imagine that many of us who reach this level of education are similarly averse to seeking assistance. But like me, you will probably find that your supervisor is helpful and supportive (remember, they went through the same ordeal at some point). If not your supervisor, then find a committee member or other faculty member to provide some guidance and support. 

Remember that it is sometimes okay to preface a conversation with Please don’t ask about that pesky PhD thing today.

Finally, remember that it is sometimes okay to preface a conversation with Please don’t ask about that pesky PhD thing today. Most people in your life will at least respect this, even if they don’t understand it. Then, move on to other topics of discussion: movies, sports, current events – yes, these things do still exist, and it’s okay to occasionally read/watch/discuss them. 

And ultimately, remember that this too shall pass… at least, I think it will. I’ll let you know when I make it through to the other side.

Are You Being Catfished?

This post was written jointly with Alec Couros and also appears on his blog.

Catfishing schemes, or romance scams, continue to plague social networking services. In fact, the issue has become so common that there’s a good chance that one of your recent “friend” requests actually came from a scammer versus someone who is actually interesting in pursuing a genuine friendship. Unfortunately, social networks on the whole seem content to turn a blind eye on the problem, despite the fact that people lose thousands of dollars to these types of scams every day. So, due to this alarming issue and utter lack of response from social networking sites, we’ve compiled a few tips, techniques and questions to ask yourself when evaluating an online profile. We hope that this information might prove be useful for both personal use and as an instructional tool.

Step 1: Assess the authenticity of the profile picture

This is really the easiest place to start. Drop the picture into Google’s reverse image search to see where else the image appears. TinEye, a dedicated reverse-image search engine, is also a great tool that can be used for to perform this search. If the picture is associated with many different names or profiles, it’s likely that you’re dealing with a scam account.

Step 2: Critique the bio

Catfishing accounts often use similar biographical components. Some red flags include:

  • A relationship status of “widowed” or “divorced” (obviously not all widowed or divorced people are catfishers, but this status in combination with other red flags might be an indication of a fake account)
  • A job that is of exceptional status and that may require a great deal of travel and/or periods without communication (e.g., military, engineer, oil worker, self-employed, shipping), making it easy for the scammer to make excuses for being absent, unavailable, or out of the country.
  • An “about” section that includes clichéd, romantic statements such as “looking for love” or statements that may stereotypically reinforce one’s integrity (as in this scammer profile below; also note that he describes himself as “God-fearing” and that there are obvious spelling mistakes in the name of the supposed alma mater – which we discuss more later):

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Step 3: Investigate the profile name

The name on the account can also be a clue about the legitimacy of the account:

  • Many catfishers seem to pull from a list of popular names. If you search for the profile name on Facebook and lots of other profiles with the same name and similar occupations pop up, you may want to look more closely. At the time of writing, numerous “Nelson Colbert” profiles appear on Facebook and all seem to be fake profiles made up similar components discussed so far (e.g., stolen profile photo, suspect occupation, etc.).

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  • Check to make sure that the name on the profile matches the name in the URL. Otherwise, it might be a sign that the scammer has had to change their profile name when a victim found them out.

3Google the profile name. Most people have at least some sort of digital footprint these days. Can you find the person? Does what you find match up with what they are telling you?

Step 4: Investigate the profile page

Some other elements of the profile to watch out for include:

  • Number of friends: Does the person have few friends? Do their friends interact authentically with them on their page, or do you only see the same people commenting/liking over and over again?
  • Types of friends: Often, if you are able to see the scammer’s friend list, it will consist overwhelmingly of people of the opposite gender (the target victims), as in this screenshot of a male scammer’s friend list:

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  • Age of the profile: Is the profile brand new, or is there a history of photo uploads, status updates, posts from others, etc? Also, note that profile posts can be backdated and locations can be faked (as seen in the image below) to make a profile seem like it has a longer history than it actually does. However, the year that the (Facebook) profile was created can’t be faked.

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  • Photos: Does the profile have only a few photos, or are there a variety of photos, including photos with others (watch out for pictures with children, as this can be part of the scam)? Do the photos look photoshopped (see “ghost dog” example below)?

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  • Mutual friends: Do you have any mutual friends? Note that having a small number of mutual friends isn’t necessarily a sign of legitimacy: scammers will sometimes friend a victim’s friends to make themselves seem more legit. If you have only a small number of mutual friends, it’s a good idea to contact those friends to see if they actually know the person. In many cases, your friend may have accepted the fake profile, due to less discerning personal protocols regarding “friending” or simply in error.
  • Language/grammar: Many scammers do not speak English as a first language. If you notice many spelling or grammar mistakes even though the person claims to be from an English-speaking country, proceed with caution.
  • Religious affiliation: Scammers will also often pose as devoutly religious individuals and sometimes use scripture or religious language to appear more trustworthy or to manipulate their victims through shared belief-systems. In fact, religion-specific dating sites such as Christian Mingle, JDate, or Shaadi are often used by scammers.

Step 5: Watch for tell-tale behaviours

Scammers often follow predictable patterns of behaviour, and there are some common red flags:

    • Use of a private messaging platform: A scammer will often quickly try to move the interactions over to email, SMS, or a different instant messaging platform. This is done so that if the original profile is identified as a fake account and removed by the social network, the scammer will not lose direct contact with their potential victim.
    • Rushing towards commitment: Scammers will try to move online relationships forward very quickly. It’s not uncommon for a catfisher to bring up marriage or to profess their love after only a few days or interactions; this helps to build a great sense of attachment and obligation, making victims more likely to agree to help the scammer later on.
    • Refusal to use video communication: Catfishers will often refuse to use anything but text or voice-based communication and will give excuses about poor connections to avoid having to Skype.
    • Out-of-sync, glitchy, or looped video: If a scammer does agree to video chat, their stream will generally be of very poor quality. This is because the scammer is usually using stolen footage that they found on Youtube or elsewhere online in order to fake a live conversation. In such cases, if audio is also present, it will appear to be out of sync with the video. Scammers may also cut video conversations short and complain of connectivity issues.
    • Repeated excuses to avoid meeting face to face: Catfishers will often make plans to meet up with their victims, but these plans will always fall through at the last minute for one reason or another.
    • Requests for compromising photos/videos: Often, scammers will request nude images or ask victims to participate in video chats of a sexual nature. These images or videos can then later be used to blackmail the victim, for instance, by threatening to send the files to the victim’s entire contact list or employer.
    • Emergencies: Once the catfisher has hooked their victim, they will likely be involved in some type of “emergency” situation. This might be an illness, loss of job, or the need to leave a location suddenly. In many cases, the scammer’s “children” may be involved.
    • Requests for money: This is obviously the top indication that you are dealing with a scammer. The request can take a variety of forms; two common techniques include advanced-fee fraud and requests for a money transfer through a company like Moneygram or Western Union (to make the money difficult to trace). Often, the victim will be told to send the money to someone other than the scammer (since the scammer is using a fake name).

Step 6: Ask for confirmation of identification

If you still aren’t completely sure whether or not you are dealing with a scammer, you can always ask for some form of confirmation.

  • Passport: Often scammers will provide a photoshopped passport as proof of identity (as in the image below). If the passport seems questionable, you can find images of real passports from various countries and compare them. You can also check out the passport photo guidelines for various countries (for instance, here are the US guidelines), which can help you determine if the photo meets the size/shape requirements.

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  • Real-time photo or video: To verify identity, you can ask the individual to provide a real-time photo (with a newspaper with that day’s date, or holding up a certain number of fingers) or to perform certain actions while on video (raise one hand, clap hands, etc.). As well, if the scammer does provide a photo, be sure to check for signs of photoshopping, like in this picture below where the head has been (poorly) photoshopped onto the body and thus seems inordinately large.

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  • At this point, we also can’t stress enough the need to use your common sense. If a profile just seems too good to be true, it unfortunately probably is (just like you don’t really have a secret relative who is the king of an African country and wants to share his wealth with you).

Step 7: Block, report, and warn others

Once you have determined that you are communicating with a scammer profile, there are a few steps you should take:

    • Report: Most social networking or dating sites have some sort of reporting tool. Often, reporting a profile will lead to it being taken down, preventing future scams on that account. As well, many victims report fake profiles to sites like Romance Scam or to Facebook groups set up to share information on scammers.
    • Block: Once you have reported the profile, you should unfriend and block the user. You may believe that the damage is already done, but if you do not unfriend and block the scammer, they will still have access to your photos, account info, and friends list. As well, people may see that you are friends with the scammer and take this as a sign that they can safely friend the account themselves.
    • Warn others: Another good step is to warn others in your circle of friends, especially if you notice that the scammer is attempting to connect with other members of your contact list.
    • Be vocal: Although there have been many attempts to improve policies at social networking services (we’re looking at you, Facebook), ultimately it will likely take a critical mass of complaints, media coverage, and awareness in order to achieve real change. So make you voice heard!

Other things to look out for:

  • Scammer “families”: In some cases, scammers will create an elaborate network of friends and family in order to bring legitimacy to the scammer profile. For instance, the fake Alex Gallart’s circle of contacts included his mother, friend, and daughter (of these, only the mother’s profile, Maria Gallart, is still up). In this case, scammers were actually using real photos of Alec’s family members to build the fake family.
  • Twinned accounts: One technique we’ve seen more of recently is when scammers create accounts that are essentially doubles of existing accounts. For instance, see these two photos:

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Scammers will use these profiles to connect with the real person’s friends and family, who simply think they are (re)connecting with the victim. Then, the scammer can use a variation on the “grandparent scam”in order to ask friends and family to send money to deal with an emergency.

To my dad, on his 70th birthday

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Heather Hartley (a wonderful woman who is good friends with my parents) about my dad’s upcoming birthday – somehow, he is turning seventy (!!!), despite the fact that he will be eternally about fifty in my mind. In any case, there is apparently a German tradition in which retiring academics are presented with a Festschrift – a collection of letters or essays from colleagues reflecting on the honoree’s contributions to the field. So Heather proposed that in honour of my dad’s birthday, we create a similar book, but with letters not just from colleagues but also from friends and family. So, me being…well…me, I decided that I would blog my response and then include the post as my contribution to the book.

At the Kennedy Centre for my dad’s 65th birthday

To be honest, it took me awhile to start this post. It wasn’t an easy one to write – not because I couldn’t sit and talk to you for hours about how cool and awesome my dad is, but because it’s hard to choose which stories and memories to share. After much deliberation, though, I think I’ve narrowed it down to just the highlights, as it were.

So forgive me if I’ve missed any of the key points – it’s grading season, after all. But here, in no particular order, are the things about my father that I am most thankful for.

His playful spirit: My dad has always talked fondly of one of his grandparents in particular: his Spiel Oma, or play-grandmother, who, from what I can gather, was always down to play. When my sister had her first child a few years ago, it became obvious that my dad was on a mission to be the next Spiel Opa, and he is certainly right on track: his latest project is setting up one of the rooms in the basement as a Lego room, ostensibly for my nephew but also, I think, for his own amusement.

And when I was growing up, my dad was just as good at playing as he is now. He taught me to love board games of any sort and was always up for a round of something, even if he had lots of work to do. Our favourite non-board game (well, probably just my favourite) to play was “Going to California,” a game that seemed mainly to involve my dad pretending to drive the bed, laden with my stuffed animals, to California. He would frequently pretend to fall asleep at the wheel (in retrospect, sort of a dark game I suppose), only to mime exaggerated braking upon “waking up,” but I think this was actually just a ploy to get me to agree to him stopping at a pretend rest stop for him to take a quick nap (and the nap part definitely wasn’t just pretend).

His hilarious disregard for the rules: For my dad, rules are more like guidelines; he has always been (as my mother would say) a bit of a “scoff-law” (rumour has it he may have hidden wine in with the spare tire in the trunk in order to get it across the border – but then, who wouldn’t bend the rules in the name of drinking good wine). He taught me to drive at thirteen by taking me to an empty, snowy parking lot and making me go as fast as I dared before slamming on the brakes so that I could “see how the ABS worked.” We then did donuts in the snow to check out the turning radius. When I got my learner’s permit, I remember him telling me to get on the expressway because it was a faster way home; being the rule-obsessed kid that I was, I informed him that I wasn’t allowed to drive on highways without my driving instructor. My dad told me that if someone pulled us over, he’d put on a German accent and pretend he couldn’t understand the rules. (Of note: his love of fun does not extend to rollercoasters, as we learned while riding the not-so-scary Nightmare on Boblo Island).

Hiking in the Alps, circa 2001

Hiking in the Alps, circa 2001

His strong political beliefs: Although my parents only recently became Canadian citizens and therefore were only recently afforded the right to vote in Canada, my father has long been a staunch supporter of the NDP. We were always the house on the block with the giant orange sign, and my father would donate to the party and support them in any way he could. He is a strong advocate for equity, although I am only now realizing the extent of his commitment to social justice issues. And as I have grown in my own capacity as an activist of sorts, my dad has never hesitated to tell me how proud he is of my work. Last year, I tweeted an article about white privilege and was trolled quite extensively because of it; after I blogged about the experience, I called my dad to let him know, lest he stumble upon the post and read some of the nastier comments. His response? Good job! You really must have made them mad – I’m so proud of you for speaking out about this! …. after which he proceeded to gleefully read the mean comments aloud to me, exclaiming about how I’d really hit a nerve.

His love of baking: This is perhaps somewhat atypical, but my dad was always the baker in our house (somewhat surprising, since his first attempt at making streusel reportedly involved slathering on a layer of butter, a layer of sugar, and a layer of flour, without mixing, resulting in a burned mess of a cake topping). He makes, hands down, the best chocolate chip cookies ever, and it’s always a treat when he sends a care package with some inside. But the best part of baking with my dad is that it is something of a ritual; it’s almost less about the product and more about spending time together. When we were kids, we’d often make cinnamon rolls for my mom – on Mother’s Day, her birthday, and Christmas morning. We’d make the dough the night before, and then my dad, my sister, and I would slip downstairs in the early morning to prepare the rolls. We each had specific tasks: my dad rolled the dough, my sister melted the butter and made the caramel sauce, and I mixed the cinnamon and brown sugar (I was young, ok? I’ve since become much more useful in the kitchen). Everything came together at the end, as we spread the butter on the dough and sprinkled on my sugar mixture, then rolled and sliced the dough and worked quickly to transfer the pieces to the pan before the filling oozed out onto the counter.

As we grew older, my sister and I increasingly took on larger shares of the roll-making responsibilities, but the ritual element still remained to some extent. I’ve made cinnamon rolls a few times at my own house, but it’s never quite the same in a different place: I can’t joke about the time that my sister and I accidentally put the “refrigerator roll dough” in the garage to rise during the summer months, because we generally made rolls in the winter when the garage was very much like a refrigerator; I can’t complain to my dad in frustration about how hard it is to do anything on the very crowded kitchen counters, where something is always in the way; and I can’t enjoy the familiar feeling of that early morning stillness spent quietly working together with my dad and sister.

My dad, the nut

My dad, the nut

Even the more negative memories hold their own charm. Each Christmas, my dad and I make brown sugar spritz cookies; they are unbelievably delicious, and a Christmas staple, but they are made using a cookie press. Our cookie press is about a hundred years old and temperamental as anything: making Spritz cookies generally involves a good deal of swearing and results in blistered hands from turning the press handle. But a few years ago my sister got a newer, easy-to-use press; when we learned how simple it was to use, my dad and I briefly discussed buying one, but it never happened…partly, I suspect, because it would have taken the joy out of laughing and swearing loudly over the trays of camel and heart shaped cookies.

His eternal optimism: One of the best things I’ve learned from my dad is a sort of “Go with it and get it done” attitude in which you deal with things as they come. Although I am not nearly as practiced as he is, I do pride myself on my determination to do what needs to be done; unfortunately, for me this often unfolds as grim determination, while my dad always seems to be able to smile and laugh in the face of just about anything.

While there are many examples of my dad’s eternal optimism (see, for instance, the dozens of times I nearly missed my train back to Toronto because of someone’s optimistic ideas about how long it took to get to the station), one of my favourite memories is of being home at Christmas and, of course, baking with my dad. For some reason (most likely due to our shared optimism about how much one can actually accomplish in one day) we were baking in the middle of the night, long after my mom had gone to sleep. As we were heating up the oven, some mystery substance on the bottom caught fire, and I remember my dad just calmly closing the door to the hallway where the smoke alarm was and saying something like, Well, it’s a self-cleaning oven – no problem, guess it’s just going to get clean! (And he was right, as usual).

And finally, his unending kindness: I am most certainly biased, but my father is easily the nicest person I know, and I suspect that a lot of people would agree with that assessment. When we started planning my dad’s birthday book, I sent out emails to lots of his former colleagues, students, and friends, many of whom I’d never met. Without fail, the responses I got were positive and enthusiastic: Of course I’ll write something – your dad changed my life!

Fishing, Summer 2013

Fishing, Summer 2013

That my father inspires so much respect and love from others – even those with whom he hasn’t spoken in years – is evidence of his caring spirit. And this is not just apparent in the letters we received about him; it is obvious everyday. My mother suffers from a rare form of Alzheimer’s which has left her blind and with decreasing ability to speak or remember things, and yet my father still insists that she live at home. Caring for my mother is a full time, often difficult job, and yet my dad does it willingly and with a positive spirit. And while he receives some assistance in the way of respite care, he also has the help of dozens of friends and neighbours; while you often hear stories of Alzheimer’s patients whose friends just stop coming by as the disease progresses, I have seen the number of regular visitors grow over the past years. This is partly because of their love for my mother, of course, but I think it is in large part a testament to their deep respect and care for my father. I’d like to think that his kindness is so deep that it inspires the same in others.

So thank you, Papa, for all this and more. And here’s to many more years of cookie baking, Lego building, late-night crossword puzzling, Sunday dinner eating, rule bending, wine drinking, and general goofy behaviour.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag. Ich liebe dich.

Deine Katia

Just two goofs on a boat...

Just two goofs on a boat…

Trump isn’t funny anymore. So why are we still silent?

Flickr photo shared by cool revolution under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-ND ) license

Flickr photo shared by cool revolution under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-ND ) license

Google “Trump isn’t funny anymore” and you’ll come up with pages of news stories with variations on that title, some dating back all the way to last summer. It’s sinking in, slowly, and yet Donald Trump remains the Republican frontrunner. Every day I wake up to another dozen troubling articles and videos detailing Trump’s seemingly unstoppable march to power.

So let me just summarize some of the more terrifying recent highlights (lowlights?):

So as this situation progresses in increasingly scary directions, I’ve decided to say something myself. And even as I’m writing, I’ve asked myself more than once: What good will my voice do? Given the plentiful media coverage, I’ve skipped blogging about this up until now, choosing instead to share existing articles on Twitter and Facebook. But isn’t that the psychology behind the bystander effect? Someone else will speak out, so I don’t have to.

And then this morning, I was watching Rachel Maddow’s report on the recent protests at Trump rallies, which clearly documents the escalation of Trump’s promotion of violence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuTe_sAI-UQ

Whether you agree with Maddow’s politics or not, this video is chilling. Listen to Trump’s words:

“These people are ruining our country.”

“These are not good people.”

“These people are so bad for our country.”

“These people are hurting this country.”

These are not soundbites taken out of context. This is hateful, racist rhetoric, pure and simple. And as I watched the video, I got really, really scared.

And I was reminded, as I am far too often these days, of this text from a 1946 speech by Martin Niemöller, criticizing the failure of German intellectuals to speak out again the rise of Nazism:  

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Perhaps this sounds overly alarmist, and perhaps I am projecting too much onto the current rise of Trump-ism. I hope that’s the case. But listening to Trump, and watching his more radical supporters, I am not convinced. So whether you believe that Trump is our generation’s Hitler or not, I am asking – imploring – all of you to take seriously Niemöller’s critique of those who stayed silent because the crisis hadn’t quite reached a point that affected them directly. To quote Homeland Security (Ironic? Maybe.): “If you see something, say something.”

And let’s be clear: As my amazing friend Maggie reminds me, “they” have “come for” many groups in America (and in Canada, and in so many other places around the world) already. Trump’s rise to prominence is built upon a society where Black lives do not, on the whole, seem to matter, where immigrants (legal or otherwise) are the targets of racist laws and rhetoric, where being a person of colour (or a woman, or LGBTQ, or poor – privilege is always marked by intersectionality) is often considered a crime in itself. We should have said something long ago. But while we can’t change the past, we can ensure that Trump’s rise catalyzes us into action.

And that’s why I’m blogging about this: because now is the time to speak, before we are in a position to look back and repeat Niemöller’s words, to ask ourselves why we stayed silent in the midst of a growing horror.

And I’m asking you to do something, too.

  • Vote: Exercise your political voice.
  • Talk about it: Blog or tweet or Facebook or….whatever… about it. But talk about it.
  • Educate yourself: Read and watch and read some more.
  • Educate others, including youth: I’ve used this animation of Maurice Ogden’s poem, “The Hangman,” to talk about the Holocaust with my grade nine students. It fits here, too.
  • Protest: In person, online, in any way you can.

But whatever you choose, do not stay silent.

The Curious Case of Srkj Rife, “Victim”-Turned-Harasser

Let me just preface all of this by saying: The Internet is an utterly crazy place.

As someone who reads a lot about digital citizenship, I’m familiar with many of the shadier things people do on the Internet. One particularly nasty activity is catfishing – that is, using a false digital identity to engage in online relationships – and one especially nefarious subset of catfishers is made up of people who use these scams to defraud others by entering into fake online relationships and then asking victims for money for a variety of made-up reasons. These scams are often run by groups of people abroad, frequently in Nigeria (hence the term “419 scam,” so-called because in the Nigerian Criminal Code, 419 is the number of the article related to fraud).

I’m particularly well-acquainted with this type of for-profit romance scam because I work with Alec Couros, whose photos and name are frequently used by scammers (we’ll get back to him in just a minute). We’ve joked a few times about creating a fake profile to try to catfish the catfishers, but we never actually set one up. So you can imagine my delight, last March, when I received a Facebook friend request from one Nelson Dozzy, who, upon further research, turned out to be a scammer account.

And that’s when I thought, Well hey, this could be fun! Why not catfish the catfisher?

Long story short (and yes, I really need to write a post about the hilarity that ensued), Nelson and I embarked on a whirlwind romance and were quickly “engaged,” but our online courtship came to an ugly end when I refused to send him $2000 to help him get “five million dollars awarded to him by the UN” out of Afghanistan (known as advance-fee fraud). Afterwards, I laughed about it, and then I moved on with my life.

Sadly, while catfishing the catfisher was a fun game for me, it’s not a laughing matter to many others. Obviously, for the victims of these scams, who sometimes lose thousands of dollars in addition to the heartbreak of discovering that their online romance was a lie, catfishing is no joke. But for those whose photos are frequently used by scammer accounts, the experience can quickly become equally nightmarish.

…Which takes me back to my friend Alec Couros. For Alec, dealing with catfishing verges on a full-time job. He literally receives hundreds of reports of profiles using his photos each week. Recently, he even created an information page to provide information for victims, and he’s also started a public Facebook page in an effort to get his profile verified (in hopes that this will make it easier to take down the fake accounts).

Because I co-teach and write frequently with Alec, I’ve gotten a firsthand look at just how exhausting and frustrating this situation is for him. In addition to reporting fake accounts, Alec also frequently has to deal with the victims, who contact him in varying states of distress, confusion, and anger. Despite his efforts to get Facebook to do something about this issue (and not just his efforts – Alan Levine has also been fighting hard to deal with this situation), the social network service has been totally unresponsive. In fact, Alec has had his own account suspended on more than one occasion over suspected fraudulent activity – but if a Facebook employee had taken two minutes to really look at the scammer accounts, it would have been glaringly obvious who the real Alec was.

To his credit, Alec handles all of this with much more grace than I would ever be able to, and he works tirelessly to educate others about the issue through blogging, news interviews, and other venues. But a few days ago, he was contacted by a particularly persistent victim, which he blogged about here (the context is important, so I’d suggest taking a moment to read his post if you haven’t already). After a few accusatory tweets, it seemed like she’d move on, as most of the victims do. But instead, the harassment has not only continued but also escalated.

See, this particular victim (we’ll call her Srkj, the odd pseudonym she uses on Twitter) appears to believe that Alec himself is, in fact, the scammer, and that he has simply fabricated the hundreds of other stories of scammers using his pictures. This is particularly ironic because Alec does a great deal of work in the area of positive digital citizenship – not to mention the fact that between being a full-time professor, giving keynotes around the world, and raising four kids, Alec barely has time to eat or sleep, let alone engage in diabolical scamming operations. Nevertheless, Srkj has made up her mind and launched a bizarre campaign that seems to be aimed at discrediting Alec and tarnishing his reputation:

Screen Shot 2016-03-04 at 3.48.40 PM

Despite Alec’s efforts to explain the situation, Srkj seems intent on sticking to her story, extending her campaign of harassment to Facebook as well. There, she has been sharing his informational blog post and Facebook page on her own wall alongside some disparaging commentary. She also left a comment on Alec’s Facebook page (the comment has since been hidden) attacking him quite viciously; I had originally planned to quote portions of her message to give a sense of the content, but upon re-reading it I found that it was actually too offensive (and, at times, incredibly vulgar) to include.

Given my own interest in digital identity, I’ve been following this saga pretty closely. And the whole thing has started to feel a little strange. So if you’ll bear with me, let me take you on a little journey into the bizarre world of our friend (well, not so much) Srkj.

The first hint of something being amiss was Srkj’s refusal to drop the issue, especially given that, by her own report, she had only been talking to the scammer for a few days. In fact, her interest in Alec seemed to have developed into a strange obsession: as of the date this was posted, a whopping 40 of 49 tweets on her account related to him (and the account dates back to 2013, eliminating the possibility that she created the account specifically to harass him).

The vehemence of the attack continues to be totally unwarranted and devoid of logic. For instance, this morning I noticed that Srkj had posted this tweet:

Screen Shot 2016-03-04 at 8.58.54 AM

Because Alec has blocked her, however, Srkj is not longer able to follow him, meaning that the only way for his face to keep “poping [sic] up” is for her to search for his username specifically while logged out. As well, when Alec sent Srkj a Youtube video showing how scammers use videos to “Skype” with their victims, she claimed that it was a fake video he had created just then in order to defend himself, and she keeps coming back to this argument:

Screen Shot 2016-03-04 at 8.58.39 AM

Frankly, this last tweet just confuses me, because I did check the date and it was posted last August. So unless Alec purchased a Delorean recently…

So, fueled by my own interest in the subject as well as annoyance on Alec’s behalf, I decided to do a little digging. I pride myself on being a bit of a professional cybersleuth, in that I can find just about anything online. But following the breadcrumbs in this mystery is perplexing.

Full disclosure: To be honest, it didn’t take me more than 30 minutes to track down Srkj’s real full name, age, address, list of misdemeanors… (yeah, I’m kinda good at this), and that was just using a regular search engine, not pulling from databases (such as state case files) in a deep web search. But I’m also aware that there is a big difference between doing a little snooping online (who among us hasn’t creeped the odd Facebook page or two?) and actually posting that information; public is not the same as publicized, and I’m not looking to start a cyber vigilantism campaign here. So while every piece of information that I discovered could easily be found by anyone with an Internet connection and some level of digital literacy, I have chosen not to link directly to articles, accounts, or other sites that would reveal the woman’s real name.

In any case, when I began to dig around online, the whole situation just got more and more bizarre. For one thing, while Srkj frequently uses the same photos, she is wildly inconsistent with usernames, going by at least four names that I can find, all linked together by commonalities. Some of this variance can be explained by married vs. maiden names, but not all of it. Try as I might, I absolutely cannot decipher where her consonant-heavy Twitter name comes from. Oddly, Srkj almost appears to have two separate digital identities under two separate names. Two Myspace pages, two Twitter accounts, but the photos and writing style suggest a clear link.

Okay…So Srkj isn’t very concerned about a consolidated digital footprint. So what?

Well, things just kept getting weirder. For one thing, Srkj appears to be well acquainted with the idea of catfishing. She is a member of the Romance Scammers on Facebook group, which is a group where victims work to take down other scammers (somewhat ironically, the group description reads: “how to get rid off [sic] scammers???? we are just more intelligent than them !!!!!!!”). On her Google plus profile, Srkj has posted about catfishing multiple times, including a video of a Nigerian scammer being arrested. All this begs the question of why she didn’t seem to get what was going on with Alec. Given this disconnect, I began to wonder if perhaps her site had actually been taken over by a scammer intent on discrediting Alec in order to make it easier to use his photos. Indeed, the Facebook post below seems to suggest that Srkj had concerns over her account security:

Screen Shot 2016-03-04 at 3.24.29 PM

But then Alec stumbled upon some new information: this post on the Romance Scammers group where Srkj actually admits to having been involved in scamming women herself.

screencapture-www-facebook-com-groups-260620843949421-permalink-1061497347195096-1456977158790

In case you aren’t keen on wading through that, the first part is the most interesting:

This man is a scammer I dealt with this person for 3 years.He had me send other woman’s money to him in nigeria.He claims he is a business man in nigeria selling land Rover parts.I was victim.And his last victim was candice l Adams he stole 1800 dollars from her sent to me to send back to him in nigeria.I didn’t send it back I kept it. Also a Tania Noell he stole 700.00 from her.I also have several recipts of money I sent to him under various Nigerian names.”

Essentially, Srkj just admitted to knowingly participating in this particular scam, both by sending other women’s money to him and by keeping money that another victim had sent to her. Oddly enough, no one else in the group seems to notice this; instead they are all intent on finding and bringing down the scammer.

And that appears to be a big cornerstone of Srkj’s battle: she is desperate to find the “real” scammer and believes she has zeroed in on him with Alec. This is perhaps quite obvious, but I feel I’d be remiss not to point out two major flaws in her judgment (that is, beyond the important fact that I, and countless others, know Alec well enough to say with certainty that he is not involved in a secret life of catfishing): first, on a very basic level, it just doesn’t make sense for someone involved in a scamming operation to use their own photos. But perhaps more importantly, it’s simply not possible to find the “real” scammer because these fake accounts are not isolated projects; rather, the accounts are most likely part of a large-scale operation with remarkably standardized operating procedures (there are even sites that collect the love letters used over and over by scammers).

But to return to Srkj, I admit that the revelation of her complicity, even participation, in catfishing activities initially seemed odd, given her own history as a victim. But as I dug deeper in my quest to learn more about Srkj, it started to make a bit more sense. The more I looked, the more it became apparent that our “victim” was in fact, well, not such a nice person. Her Facebook page (which appears to be mostly public) includes, among other things, evidence of an intolerance of immigrants (“Well if your not from here anyways start packing”); a link to this article about Obama’s move to penalize states that refuse to accept refugees, accompanied by the message “These refuges ain’t noughting more then born kilkers;” and this family portrait against a Confederate flag backdrop.

Rife_Srkj_-_Facebook_Search

Srkj’s recent past also includes two bizarre shoplifting incidents, in which she attempted to steal various food items from grocery stores: in one incident, her admittedly classy shoplifting included the theft of “lobster tails and shrimp,” while the other somewhat less classy incident involved hiding steaks and hams in her purse.

Identity, digital or otherwise, is a complex and slippery thing, and judging another person harshly without considering the full context is neither fair nor productive. But Srkj’s attack on Alec has become a campaign of slander and harassment, and that’s not fair either.

To be clear, the picture of Srkj painted by her fragmented digital identity suggests that this is a woman who has had a difficult life. There are certainly indications that she is living on a very low income or perhaps social assistance, and her writing indicates a lower level of literacy. As well, mixed in with the hate speech are pictures that depict Srkj as a loving mother who cares a great deal about her family. Identity, digital or otherwise, is a complex and slippery thing, and judging another person harshly without considering the full context is neither fair nor productive. But Srkj’s attack on Alec has become a campaign of slander and harassment, and that’s not fair either.

So why did I write this post? Ultimately, there are a few reasons. For one thing, I simply don’t believe that Srkj’s hateful and untrue messages should go unaddressed. Having dealt with my own share of online harassment, I am compelled to speak up about this, especially since Alec’s own efforts to deal with both this situation and the larger issue of catfishing have been largely unsuccessful. Also, part of my job involves teaching about digital citizenship and digital literacy, and I feel that exploring the complexities of this case – and having more conversations about these topics in general – is important in raising awareness; catfishers prey on those who lack the digital literacy to detect the scam, and so it’s critical that we educate others about this.

But ultimately, this story is much bigger than Alec or Srkj or even the catfishing rings. So I would like to add my voice to Alec’s and Alan’s in calling for social networks to step up in addressing scammer accounts. Certainly, the legal aspects of catfishing are tricky because these scams know no borders, but social networks have the power and ability to crack down on fraudulent accounts – it is simply not a priority to corporations for whom any growth in users (fake or otherwise) is seen as a sign of success. And that lack of interest in preventing what amounts to identity theft is a big problem for all of us, because without efforts from social networking services, the issue will only continue to grow. As Alec posted recently on Facebook:

“For those who haven’t been affected (or more likely don’t yet know that they’ve been affected), it’s difficult to fathom what a time-sucking, anxiety-causing, expletive-saying kind of experience this. Unless we get FB and other social media companies to act, this is the very near-future of our networked lives.”

No, I’m not okay, and yes, you can help

 

Photo credit: auntjojo under a Creative Commons license

This weekend, I have been, well, what I like to call “wallowing.” Actually, it’s been going on a bit longer than that, but on Thursday I broke through the Netflix-induced haze and graded a class set of papers (and yeah, just doing that much is kind of a big deal). And it’s not to say that I’ve done nothing at all this weekend, but I haven’t done as much as I should have, and that’s led to a cycle of wallowing, guilt for wallowing, more reason for wallowing, more reason for guilt for wallowing … and so on and so forth.

And then in this charming vortex of unpleasantness, I realized that exactly one year ago today, I first wrote openly about my own longtime struggle with depression and the stigma that surrounds mental illness. February has always been a particularly unpleasant month for me (and at least one depressed friend concurs, so perhaps a move to go straight from January to March is in order). So I figured that today is as good a day as any to revisit the topic, because it certainly hasn’t gone away.

To be honest, every time I speak or blog about this issue, I half expect for the world to come crashing down around me as people realize that I’m maybe not quite as “put together” or “stable” as they thought I was. I don’t like asking for help, and I don’t want to be treated any differently.

Wait. “I don’t want to be treated any differently”? Really?

I’m starting to see how problematic that statement is. It’s a statement born from the ugly epidemic of stigma that surrounds depression in our society, and it makes no sense. Imagine a person with a broken leg. Wouldn’t we treat that person somewhat differently, recognizing that some tasks might be more difficult (or downright impossible) for that person? I would certainly hope so.

So why do those of us with depression often hesitate to ask for some extra understanding for ourselves when we are going through a difficult period? I imagine that some of this stems from the fact that depression and other health disorders are often accompanied by anxiety, low self-esteem, and a general desire to keep our problems under wraps lest we be found weak. It probably also comes from hearing, time and time again, you’ll be fine…just get through it…your life isn’t that bad…

But every time we say it, we are in fact making things worse for everyone with mental illness, because we are suggesting that we don’t sometimes need a little extra understanding. And I think what we are really trying to say is “I don’t want to be treated like my mental illness makes me ‘lesser than.’”

So maybe, instead of trying to fight stigma by saying, essentially, that we shouldn’t be stigmatized because we don’t require any help, maybe we could work instead to be open about the fact that yes, sometimes we do need help, and sometimes we do need some understanding, but that’s okay. It doesn’t mean we are weak. It just means that we have a mental illness, and that illness is just as real as a physical ailment.

I’m trying to do this. It’s hard. On the first day of class this semester, I stood in front of a lecture theatre of 100 undergraduates (future teachers, no less, who are often burdened by an intense desire for perfection) and spoke about my depression, despite fearing that it would make them treat me differently. I did so to show them that it’s okay to need help and to show that sometimes being an ally means risking our own privilege (in this case, this is the privilege I’m afforded by staying quiet about an “ism” that isn’t outwardly visible).

And I’ve noticed that my students have started speaking out as well. A few weeks ago, students in STARS Regina ran a Twitter chat about supporting students with mental health. Several of them have also taken the brave step of blogging about their own experiences (Raquel, Kendra, Dave, and Meagan, to name a few).

Ultimately, we all need to be more open, and to trust in the humanity of those around us. So to all of us who need a little extra kindness sometimes, I apologize for discounting that. To all of my friends and colleagues and students and complete strangers who are just a little broken (and I don’t mean that in a bad way), I’m sorry for trying to minimize your stories. And when you find yourself wallowing, as I often have recently, remember that you are not alone, and that we, the broken ones, are all around, perhaps hiding in fear of stigma, but always ready to listen and give a little kindness.

And by the way, to whoever decided that we should add the extra leap day to February, thanks a lot.

Dissertation isolation: Say it ain’t so…

Three years ago, if you’d told me I would be writing a dissertation having anything to do with social media, I’d have laughed at you. Three years ago, I had just gotten a Twitter account and had used it…oh…maybe five times. Social media was a fun distraction, sure, but not much more.

Flickr photo shared by Marc_Smith under a Creative Commons ( BY) license

But for the past few days, I have been intently focused on finally getting my proverbial s*** together and finishing a draft of my dissertation which deals, in large part, with social media and digital identity. But I don’t always have the best attention span. I get distracted by many things – organizing my books, vacuuming, obsessing over how many steps my Fitbit has recorded today, and, of course, social media. Some might even say that social media, and the Internet in general, gets in the way of my productivity. And sure, sometimes it does. Did I really need to re-read that hilarious blog post about why procrastinators procrastinate for the twentieth time? Probably not (but if you haven’t read it, you really should…). Did I have to look through the trending hashtags on Twitter to learn that the odd one that I couldn’t parse was, inevitably, about more One Direction drama (I kid you not – every single time). Well, no.

But.

And that’s a big but (no pun intended).

But.

Social media is also a goldmine of incredible information. The vast majority of the citations in my third comprehensive exam paper, which was about digital identity, came from Twitter – well, more specifically, from what I dug up by searching for my Twitter handle + #identity in order to access the scores of articles on the subject that I had carefully curated from others’ sharing over time. And social media is the gift that keeps on giving. Today, I was writing about why it is so critical that all of us, but especially educators, speak out for social justice in online spaces, even though it is potentially risky (and, as in my case, can lead to being trolled in a not-so-nice way). And on one of my social media breaks, I came across this fantastic post by Bonnie Stewart about the way that social media shapes our world. To quote Bonnie:

“Facebook – and more broadly, social media in general…but Facebook remains for the moment the space of the widest participation across demographics even while targeting ads designed to keep people IN their existing demographics – is the stage upon which the battle over dominant cultural narratives is played out.

Social media is where we are deciding who we are, not just as individual digital identities but AS A PEOPLE, A SOCIETY.”

Thanks for the dissertation material, Bonnie!

Writing, publishing, literacy in general – it truly is now all about participation and collaboration.

So writing my dissertation has been incredibly hard, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think. When I get into my groove, I am a prolific and rapid writer. But these days, I write mostly blog posts, and I find that my ability to write academically has been overtaken, in some ways, by my ability to blog. If I could blog my dissertation, I would. I’m a bit lost without the ability to hyperlink to other blogs or articles or people, and I feel that my writing suffers because of it. Because really, that’s the magic of social media, social writing, and Web 2.0: writing, publishing, literacy in general – it truly is now all about participation and collaboration. A good blog post is a good blog post because it links into a much wider web of knowledge, and it does so in a highly transparent and accessible way. Sure, we cite others in academic papers, but to access a cited work we would usually have to search for it in an academic database or – gasp – go to the library (I have helpfully linked to the Wikipedia page about libraries here in case you’ve forgotten what they are). The way we think about knowledge is changing, at least when it comes to the digital sphere: as David Weinberger said, “The smartest person in the room is the room.” I even watched this shift play out in my research. What began as an ethnographic study/discourse analysis rapidly changed into something much more collaborative. Instead of me sitting alone and analyzing my participants’ words, we sat there and picked them apart together – both their words and, at times, mine. We constructed (well, in the case of my research, deconstructed) understandings collaboratively. And the experience was so much richer because of it.

In a particularly depressing moment of Heart of Darkness, Conrad writes, “We live as we dream – alone.” In many ways, academia seems still to embrace this worldview – it might as well read, “I write my dissertation as I dream – alone.” But just as the magic of Google Drive means I will never have to edit documents alone again, the magic of social media means that I no longer have to write, read, think, or be an “expert” in isolation. Maybe it’s time academia embraced this incredible connected culture that we live in just a little bit more and took up a more social form of learning. After all, “We participate, therefore we are.”

And hey, I might even find a way to work this blog post into my dissertation.