Welcome to Wednesday, readers! Thanks for stopping by.
I usually take a few moments for these mid-week posts to talk a bit about technology and social work and the intersections that exist. I have an offline notebook (it’s a notebook) where I write down ideas I could bring here. But then I just open up this app and let the fingers do the typing, and hope something relevant happens.
Look, if I use this space to brain-dump all my stress every mid-week… well, maybe that would work, actually? I’m not sure I’d feel better if I came here to rant and rave all my frustrations. I did that on Twitter for years, and strangely enough, it worked wonderfully. I met a lot of colleagues this way over the years. In 2013, I appeared on a “top social work professors on Twitter” list somewhere, and before long, I was building communities in that Twitter space.
The Twitter of old is gone now, of course. What made it work was the sense that, at some level at least, there was moderation. Complaints could, maybe, get followed up on. And people used it! If I posted a question to the void, I could tag a few colleagues, and have a conversation going within moments. We were brought together, an asynchronous collective of people with shared interests and diverse specialties.
Then the app was sold, staff was slashed, and a sense of ethics was removed along with it. I quit the app last year, after years of dedicated use. Quitting wasn’t easy, because it meant rebuilding community elsewhere. So far, that hasn’t happened. Discord feels a bit too walled off. Threads, a Meta product, missed an opportunity to seize the moment when Twitter users were looking for a new destination. Bluesky is still a question mark, though I have been using that app steadily for a while now.
The biggest problem with dreaming of a new microblogging home is, well, it’s not 2007. Those days of digital evolution and discovery are gone. it’s 2025 and we know how this works, and what the likely outcomes of committing to a new app will be. If Bluesky grows and becomes useful, will it get sold? Where does my data go? How many racists, fascists or trolls will I have to spend precious time dealing with?
At the beginning of this year, I’ve been using this Substack thing. It has a kind of Twitter-like feature in Notes (I think that’s what they are calling that). It has a dedicated blogging feature, but I do think I’m the only one who uses the word “blog” these days. They have a handy podcast platform that I hope to use in earnest. A friend and colleague, Mike Langois, is posting about gaming and therapy. He’s writing interesting stuff and you should go check him out. I’m looking to find more social workers writing about their specializations and interests. Or just writing. I’m here to share stuff:
So, no, I don’t think Subtack can be what Twitter was, at least not functionally. But it may be a new way to build connections. I’ll ask this question again in a year.
Some links for Wednesday:
Perplexity has added DeepSeek, so you can see what the fuss is about. (Fast Company)
Is AI a game-changer? Two years in, maybe not yet. (Slate)
On the other hand, there are several possible AI Futures in academia. (Bryan Alexander)
Getting weird with Midjourey may be therapeutic (Slate)
Thanks for reading. I like coffee.
