“Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty.” And Mastodon was the most common destination if they opened…
Why is it that #scientists hang on to #twitter? Why don’t they move to #mastodon?
@hildabast do you have contacts in the science community who could answer such questions?Because there’s a large, complex set of overlapping communities and no ‘head of scientists’ to say ‘OK everyone, we are moving next Tuesday’. It’s still an effective way to communicate with the people they need to communicate with
It’s still an effective way to communicate with the people they need to communicate with
I’m not sure how what Twitter has continue to devolve into is “effective”.
You’ll find that there are tight-knit specialists communities still using it that have seen virtually no affect from Musk’s idiocy.
Think of the question more as “person over there who is a scientist using twitter, why do you still use twitter?” and “group of people who are scientists, what are the myriad reasons you as individuals use twitter?” –> X% because of Y, A% because of B
@elouboub @stopthatgirl7 Habit & addiction - it’s designed to keep you hooked - plus so many other people being there. Then for some there’s ego/the buzz of so many people paying attention to you. Lots of reasons…
I can answer it!
Scientists aren’t a monolith and are an extremely diverse group of people associated together largely by profession alone, and within a single lab of scientists all working on the same project one could expect to fund each one using different social media if at all.
the question is more in the vein of “why do you as a scientist still use twitter?”, not “hey amorphous blob consisting of all scientists with a hive mind, tell me why you still use twitter”. If you’re a scientist and use twitter, why do you? And if you know scientists who do, why do they?
The point is that their identity as a scientist will be one small contributing factor compared to who they are as a person, making it difficult to really even answer without just going to each individual person and asking them. Hey plumbers, why do you use Facebook? Hey accountants, why are you in Instagram?
