Social Media & Masculinity

I wrote a paper. It's a long paper. And it's linked below. It's the longest paper I have ever written, both in terms of page count and calendar count.  My dissertation focused on how digital identities and masculine identities intersect for college men.

The idea for the topic formed a couple of years ago, and I'm not sure that I would have been able to predict how much I enjoyed the process of conducting research and writing about it. I defended the research in May, sent it off to ProQuest and it was just published - I like to think it's because all the folks at ProQuest passed it around to one another to read because it was so interesting and by the time it routed around the office, three months had passed.

Now comes the time to prep presentations and try to get some scaled down versions of the paper published. Here's to sharing the results... and finding more time to conduct research in the future!

You can view my dissertation defense presentation (about 25:00 long). It's not that interesting, but it's proof that I actually finished this thing.



You can view the slides from my dissertation defense here:

Social Media & Masculinity from Charlie Potts

And you can download the full dissertation HERE.

Interested in this topic? I'd love to connect.
You can connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or via email!

What I Learned Running 100 Days in a Row

Persistence can often lead us to self-awareness. I used to run quite a bit. I would never have classified myself as “a runner,” but running was a big part of my life. My wife and I have run 4 marathons, probably 20+ half marathons. We’ve run together, we’ve run separately, we’ve run pushing our boys in strollers or next to us on bikes, we’ve run in snow, rain, sleet, and wind – the important part was that we were running.

Then sometimes you just slow down. You have difficulty finding enough time or enough energy to do the things you loved to do. Work – even on the good days – absolutely drains many of us of all our energy. Work is tough. Parenthood is tough. An aging and expanding body is tough. 

I ran my last marathon in October 2012 and it was a rough experience. I began to run less and less until I essentially did not run for about 2 years. There was a hole there – a sense that something was missing. I used to be bothered when I went more than a couple days without a good run, but you slowly adjust and I began to miss it less.

Frustrated with myself for getting out of shape (remember that bit about the aging & expanding body? It ages and expands rapidly these days), I decided to take the “Runner’s World Run Streak Challenge,” which was to run at least a mile a day every day between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. I had done a 30-day run streak a few years ago and thought this one (37 days) would be manageable. I had hardly run in the previous 6 months, but figured I could do at least a mile every day. Maybe the routine would pull me back into running again and recharge my batteries a bit – help me deal with other stressors in my life.

Day 1 (November 26)

I committed to the run streak and I did it. It started with a 5k on Thanksgiving Day and I ran every day. Every single day for 37 days. I didn’t run fast and I didn’t run far, but I did it. And you know what? It became a habit. It maybe wasn’t quite “fun” again, but it wasn’t as bad as I imagined and I actually started to remember why I liked running so much. It went so well that I figured I’d keep going. Why stop at 37? Why not 40? Maybe 50? Then why stop there?

So here I am at Day 100. It’s been an enlightening experience. Some days have been brutal – trying to even get one mile in after 10 straight hours of meetings, feeding & putting kids to bed… just trying to get it done before midnight. Some days have been easy – a 3 mile run on a sunny day made me feel young again (okay, maybe feel like 30 again). But the lessons have been awesome and they translate so well to my work life…

Sometimes you have to make time. It isn’t always easy to find the time to do the things you want or need to do, but you have to create the space and time to do it. I realized that even on the “off days” (the days I just ran 1 mile), all I needed was 10 minutes to get it all done. I made time when I had to do it. I never ran earlier than 6:30am and never later than 10pm. 

 

      Sometimes the crappy stuff has to get done. There were a lot of days I just did NOT want to run. But I realized that even though a run was on my “crappy stuff” list for the day, it still had to be done. And when I finished it, I could check it off my list and move on to things I actually felt like doing. 
 

      Sometimes you surprise yourself. I had hardly run for two of the previous three years and certainly was not ready to run this often. But I did it. 37 days flew by, the next 20 were easy, and it just kept going until I saw 100 in the sights. I’ve felt good almost every single day I’ve run – even days when I’m tired or during a week-long sinus infection – running was the thing that let me feel good about an accomplishment. And I surprised myself by doing it 100 times in a row.

   

          Sometimes people care – sometimes they don’t. I shared pictures occasionally on social media. I told a few people about it. I have a couple co-workers who continually encouraged me. Sometimes sharing got me a pat on the back, but sometimes people just didn’t care. And that’s okay. Sometimes you do difficult things because you want to accomplish it, not because someone will click “like” or congratulate you on it.

    

          Persistence pays. Just put your head down and go – give me at least 10 minutes. I pretty much said that to myself 100 days in a row. You can do anything for 100 days – it’s a small segment of life for most of us, and the personal sense of achievement far outweighs any discomfort. It was never about speed, it was never about distance, it was never about competition – it was entirely about challenging myself to do something. Stick with it… whatever it is.

I’m lucky to be able to run - to have the luxury of lacing up nice running shoes, running on a treadmill at a gym or in a safe neighborhood.  Some days it was 1 mile, sometimes it was 4 miles. It was never fast and won't ever be fast. But a run is a run. So this streak is a challenge I chose, and you know what? The streak continues. Because why stop at 100? Here’s to the next 100 and continued lessons in persistence.

Day 100! (March 4)

Writing for Fun

Once upon a time I wanted to be a journalist. More specifically, I wanted to be a sportswriter.

As an undergraduate, I had the relatively unique opportunity to write for the sports section of a regional newspaper. I started as a stringer, taking calls from coaches who were reporting scores and typing up agate. After a few months, I asked if I could cover a game. Sometime in the summer of 1999, I got to cover a Mankato Twins game. It was just an amateur, town-ball league game but I remember being nervous and anxious about whether I'd get the details right, if I'd figure out which player to interview, and if I'd even have enough to say when writing up a game story (under DEADLINE!)

The first paragraph from the first game was a beauty. Elaborate, setting the stage, providing readers with a glimpse into the national past time and the sights & sounds on that field that night. Then one of the senior writers helped me review it. He took one look and said, "Might be a little much. How about 'It was a beautiful night for baseball...' and then don't forget to put in the score." Solid advice for a rookie.

I got better with practice and covered dozens and dozens of games over the next 4-5 years. I covered Minnesota Vikings OTAs at Winter Park, Gustavus athletics, Minnesota State-Mankato events and something at just about every high school in a 30 mile radius. I even managed to squeeze 15 column inches out of a 0-0 tie in a U15 girls soccer. I loved writing and it gave me a more enjoyable outlet than English major-required papers about the Bronte sisters.

I gave it up when I moved away from St. Peter but I never lost the itch to write and to cover events. I missed watching events with an eye toward human interest story lines, unique statistics, etc. Writing has always been enjoyable for me and certainly came to me much more easily than math equations or biology.

The introvert in me struggles to interview others, but I've found that most people will be more engaged and respectful in dialogue when they have something to gain by being appropriate and thoughtful. The natural impulse for most people is to simply be waiting for their chance to speak when engaged in "dialogue." But when I'm interviewing someone, my question and line of inquiry dictates the conversation - others are waiting to be sure they know what I'm asking before they blurt out their quickest response. I like that.

So I stayed in touch (primarily through social media) with connections at the Mankato paper and in May, the sports editor called asking if I'd be interested in writing as a freelancer. Absolutely. I miss writing - I've written academic papers and emails over the last decade, but nothing that was what I consider fun. So I said yes.

My first assignment: North Mankato Triathlon. I was extremely nervous before the race - almost as nervous as some of the participants, I think. The same fears as I remembered from more than a decade earlier - would I miss a detail? Would I have enough to write? Fear of not performing is what scared me, but it's what motivates me to try to write well.

As I watched the event and took notes, it started coming back to me. I wasn't so scared and I started running through potential ledes and looking for potential human interest parts of the event. Pretty soon I had enough to fill 15 column inches. The enjoyment of covering an event and creating the words to tell a story was definitely something I missed.

I'm happy to be back in the game - even if it's only an occasional game story.

The story didn't run on the Free Press website, but Angie snapped a pic of it:

Men in SA e-book!

Proud to be a part of this awesome e-book from the Student Affairs Collective. Sean Eddington started this as a blog series and it was an awesome way to talk and read about what it means to be a man in Student Affairs.

Check it out now on Amazon or on the Student Affairs Collective!

The Power of Anonymity & Community Conversation

We have had our fair share of issues around anonymous social media lately on our little campus in southern Minnesota. After a few gender-related concerns about our campus recreation facility followed by some misguided conversation around a student-led social justice conference on campus, the issue of rape culture took over the Yik Yak airwaves.

Horrible, horrible things were said by men on campus via this anonymous app. Aggressive responses were met with more hate and the animosity grew. Two fantastic student leaders decided to put together a campus-wide forum to discuss "Free Speech, Social Media & Creating Conversations." The event - attended by about 150 people - was moderated, questions were taken from Yik Yak directly (gulp) as well as from the audience. I was asked by the coordinators to be a panelist (gulp) and speak briefly on "Social Media & Anonymity" before joining a panel up front to take questions (gulp).

I spoke for just 3-4 minutes and felt good about my message. Most of the questions for the panelists that day were handled by the Vice President for Student Life and the two exceedingly intelligent faculty members. I just smiled a lot and tried to not sound silly.

The event was successful. As expected, there was not clear resolution. However, the conversation was started and in a very public way. Anonymity has its place in community - I truly believe it can. But a conversation that allowed for both anonymity and face-to-face interaction proved to be of great value.

I felt like posting what I wrote and read that day. 

-------------------------------  

I'm here today to talk briefly about social media & anonymity. 

Specifically, where does ethical and social obligation begin & end in digital space. This is hard enough to navigate in spheres in which we carry names, but particularly in the realm of the anonymous.

Anonymity can be powerful. Anonymity, by definition IS and in theory SHOULD BE, void of labels. Void of names. Void of direct judgement within the context of who you are.

Erikson said identity is a "conscious sense of individual uniqueness." The ability to be anonymous in digital space allows us to obscure that part of us that accrues reputation. This seems counter-intuitive to who we are here at Gustavus, right? We spend so much time working on our resumes and our experiences, yet we often find solace in anonymity. But maybe that's the appeal. The ability to just be another person and not carry the stigma of what you have to say.

Rey Junco is a leader scholar in the area of research around college students and social media. He says that online anonymity is a powerful force for democratic freedoms, interpersonal growth and creative expression. The American college campus is a place defined by those three things. Students from subordinated identities often thrive when given an opportunity to express themselves anonymously.

I talk often of "Keyboard Warriors," those individuals who hide behind the shield of a screen and keyboard in order to speak what they feel is a truth they would otherwise not be willing to speak to our faces. Keyboard Warriors say horrible things. Keyboard Warriors can be nasty, belittling and angry. Now add the mask of anonymity, and the Keyboard Warriors are not just hiding behind false courage, they are performing while knowing we don't know who they are. Junco refers to this as "the online disinhibition effect." The removal of social barriers that would prevent one from speaking his or her mind.

This is complicated. We know that developing identity involves a stable sense of self that is both internally consistent and externally validated - so can that happen when you're anonymous?

Anonymity via social networking is nothing new. There have been anonymous chat rooms and web pages since the internet was created. But the widespread appeal and access to mobile applications that allow for anonymity have raised this within our consciousness. Social media is not just another thing on our list of things to do - it is a central means of communication, of idea and knowledge sharing and of making statements that reach wide audiences.

The average Tweet reaches four times what we assume the audience to be and we never know it. Facebook changes its algorithms like I change shirts, so who knows what sort of statement goes to 10 of your friends today but to 100 future employers tomorrow. A Yak, though void of an identifier, might reach thousands of people within a geographical radius. So what does that say about our obligation to one another?

We know that nearly 90% of the population aged 18-29 uses social media and we know that Yik Yak is used on nearly every college campus in the country. So what? So we better understand how we’re using it and our ability to be aware of intent vs impact.

Those who want to limit access to Yik Yak feel it's only destructive and harmful. The opposite stance is that by limiting Yik Yak we curtail free speech. But free speech often requires a thoughtful approach to context. Just because you CAN say something does not mean you SHOULD. Your platform has power. Your words have power. Whether your name is tied to it or not.

I'm here to talk about social media but it's not the platform, my friends. We can blame anonymity for our challenges and we can blame Yik Yak all we want. But the root of the problem with offensive, crude posts on Yik Yak is that people are writing these things. Gusties are writing these things. 

But maybe there’s a light. Because Gusties are also writing the positive Yaks.

And anonymity doesn’t have to mean “awful.” Anonymity can have power, anonymity can have positivity. The platform is really just potential. It's what we choose to do with it that makes it matter.

---------------------------

What are your thoughts on anonymity in social media? 

What role does it play on your campus - is it finding it's way comfortably into your community or is it acting as a disruptor? 

Is disruption good or bad? 

How are you helping educate students on the power of language? 

What are you learning about the power of language?

 

My Job is More Than What I Post

I just returned from ACPA in Tampa. ACPA is quite the production - the planning team did a wonderful job creating a huge schedule of educational sessions, receptions, featured speakers, etc. It's a professional development opportunity that has me thinking - and that's the best kind.

My flight home took awhile and while I spent most of it contemplating whatever time vortex I was entering going from eastern time to central time to daylight saving time all within a span of an hour (the quick answer: I just didn't need to change my clocks. It felt weirder than it really was), I had a chance to reflect a bit on what I learned.

I kept cycling through things I learned and things I read on the Twitter backchannel (#ACPA15 was blowin' up all weekend) and I kept getting stuck on one central idea:

I don't want to be better at my job on social media than I am at doing my job in real life.

I worry that we do this a lot. That we share things on social media (self-aggrandizing blogs like this one included) that we don't translate to our daily work. We look better online than we actually do at work.

Is it a matter of not having the time or energy? I write about ideas and Tweet things all the time that then make it to the to-do list but fall to the cutting room floor when the never-ending daily minutiae of the job catch up with me.

Is it a lack of confidence? A friend refers to internet trolls as "keyboard warriors" - Those who gain courage behind the cover of a keyboard and screen, saying things in comment sections and on social media that they would never say to someone's face. To shift the definition a bit to speak to a question of courage, are we "keyboard warriors" because we often brag and highlight the things we WANT to do (or think that others should do) but lack the courage to actually try them or make them happen in real life?

How do we translate the amazing ideas we hear about and talk about at professional development opportunities like ACPA to our daily work?  

What are you taking home in that notebook that you will absolutely MAKE HAPPEN?

I want to be proud of the fact that the the enthusiasm and interest with which I approach student affairs-related topics on social media matches the work I do on my own campus.

Professional development in student affairs is about practical application - not just big conference registration fees and hotel bills and cool new cities. Put your thoughts (and the thoughts of others) into action at your own institution.

 

Keeping the Small Problems Small

I just read a great blog post by Stacy Oliver called "Tuesday was a Bad Day." It was a post that brought forward the idea of thinking more critically about how we talk about the bad days we have. We all have bad says. Even the most optimistic and talented professionals have crappy days - it happens and it's okay that it happens.

We tend to gloss over the bad stuff and talk about the positive stuff. Might be a defense mechanism, might be fear of letting negativity overwhelm us, might be a by-product of how social media has turned us into highlight-reel monsters. Whatever it is, I think Stacy had some great points and it made me think more about how I handle disappointment in my job.

Stacy talked about some very tragic, life-altering bad things that made life tough. It made me think about my own work but on a much different level... I have a terrible habit of small things ruining my day at work.


Maybe a student is incredibly disrespectful. Maybe a tough immediate budget decision means a program or event will not be as great as you thought it would. Maybe someone in another department doesn't want to hear or understand the rationale behind a relatively minor decision. These little things at work pile up and I let them affect my performance as a professional.


These kinds of things happen all the time and I let them take control of my day. I get anxious, frustrated and agitated and it starts to negatively influence other interactions and decisions. I like to think it's not simply about being right or being in control - that it's more a matter of principle than anything - and I often let it ruin part of a day before I realize it's not worth it.

Richard Carlson's Don't Sweat the Small Stuff was a stress management/self-help book in the late 1990s and the classic title has become sort of a catch-phrase when talking to someone about being stressed. But Carlson had some great ideas and some suggestions about how to understand the scope of problems and how to work through them without letting them pile up. He talks about letting problems be potential teachers (aka "failing forward"), about trusting intuition and taking care of one thing at time. It's helpful advice that I rarely make happen.

I was also reminded of a very helpful metaphor that one of my grad school faculty members told us once. While talking about the doctoral process, she put aside the "just spend 20 minutes a day working on it" approach and instead focused on helping us reframe all the tedious tasks along the path to completing the program.

She held up a big piece of rock and had us describe it. Bulky, opaque, clunky, a burden, etc. Then she held up a glass jar full of clear plastic beads and had us describe it. Light, transparent, manageable, etc. The lesson was that the rock was how we likely imagine problems, but the glass beads were how we should view problems. Focus on confidently handling the small problems - the tedious tasks, the minor setbacks - because they are the easiest to handle if we take it piece by piece. I find this incredibly helpful in thinking about my own daily work - now only if I'd remember it more frequently. I had hoped the more experience I had the more I'd be able to compartmentalize - to minimize the effect that small stuff had on me - but I'm resigned to the fact that I'll always have thin skin.

Stacy reminds us that "It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to be tired, to be sad, to be frustrated by the limits of our ability to help, to be challenged... it’s okay to talk about in a way that helps other professionals to learn and not feel isolated when the bad days happen to them."
 
She's right. We don't talk about it enough. We may process with colleagues, but we run the risk of seeming whiny or unprofessional. Or we run the risk of sounding like we're complaining or that we don't measure up to others if we share the tough stuff on social media, which is often our first place to express emotion these days.

Stacy asked: How do you talk about the bad days with your colleagues, peers, or staff?  

How do you talk about it? And not just the big events or major setbacks, but how do you talk about tough days when the little things pile up? Talk about the small stuff. Maybe by doing so, you can keep the small problems small. And maybe by doing so we make the big things easier to talk about...

Crossing the Streams: Discussing Context Collapse

I recently read two really great blog posts that dissected and analyzed Urie Bronfenbrenner's theory of ecological development in the context of social media use. Paul Gordon Brown and Paul Eaton are two fabulous writers/researchers doing work in the area of social media and student development. Each wrote about Bronfenbrenner's theory, but with slightly different twists.

Reading the two posts pushed me to think more about my own area of research interest related to how social media use influences male gender identity development. Of particular interest after reading Brown and Eaton's blog posts was the idea of how multiple systems make up a student's social ecology and how we can observe where those systems interact with (or bounce off of) one another when watching an identity develop on social media. After all, "we present ourselves differently based on who we are talking to and where the conversation takes place" (Marwick & boyd 2010, p. 114). So how does the interaction within and between a student's social systems create both friction AND a better understanding of personal identity development?

A little background: Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Development Model falls under the person-environment theory branch of the student development tree. Bronfenbrenner studied how the interaction between a person and that person's environment influences student growth. Brown gives a very nice, succinct overview of Bronfenbrenner's work in his post:

"In Bronfenbrenner’s theory, development occurs as a result of the interaction of a person and the environment. This “ecology” consists of four components: process, person, context and time. The person, or college student, is the focus of the development and possesses certain characteristics and personality traits that influence or impact the trajectory of their development. The person develops thorough proximal processes that are the interactions that spur or retard their development. All of this takes place through time and in context. Context is the component of the theory that is of most interest here, and it includes four components:

• Microsystem: Activity and face-to-face interactions in the immediate environment. (roommates, family, sports teams, etc.)
• Mesosystem: Processes that take place between or as a result of microsystem contact and/or overlap. (campus culture, different role obligations, etc.).
• Exosystem: Influence an individual but do not directly include them. (School rules, financial aid policies, the NCAA, the Department of Education, etc.)
• Macrosystem: Overall contextual beliefs that influence the whole system. (American democracy, meritocratic notions, etc.)"

Interactions on social media sites fall within the microsystem category; the transactional interactions on a micro - or more immediate - level. A step back from that is the mesosystem, where microsystems are in contact with one another and create a more complete picture of the greater environment that influences a student. It's at this point where Eaton mentions context collapse in his post, which is one of the central ideas I would like to investigate in my research.

Eaton says of the mesosystem: "Social media users must navigate the interaction between digital environments and physical environments in a complex set of relational processes. boyd (2014) refers to this process as avoiding identity and context collapse." Eaton talks about the relationship between the digital and physical, and Brown talks about adding the layer of the relationship between multiple and varied digital environments. The various opportunities for identities and microsystems to bump into one another and disrupt or impede development is an area ripe for this idea of context collapse.

The plan for my dissertation research is to study how social media acts as a critical influence in male gender identity development.  Specifically how college men use public social media (e.g. Facebook) compared anonymous social media (e.g. Yik Yak) and examining performed gender in those online spaces.  I'm very interested in context collapse and feel as though this could be an interesting part of the qualitative data.

danah boyd used the term "context collapse" to describe how a social media network like Twitter collapses multiple audiences into a single context. That collapsing of contexts makes it difficult for the user to understand the scope of the audience and makes it difficult to negotiate and manage interactions like one would in a face-to-face conversation. Marwick and boyd (2011) wrote that individuals have a sense of audience in every mediated conversation. So whether that audience is imagined or constructed, the individual makes a decision about how to present themselves in a manner that they feel is appropriate to the context of that interaction. Through social media or through other methods of digital technology (Michael Wesch (2009) discussed context collapse via computer webcams in his research) the distribution of an individual's image or message negates an ability to negotiate a conversation like you would in a face-to-face interaction.

There is a vital connection between context collapse and performed masculine identity. The pressure to perform as a man and fit into whatever socially constructed image of masculinity exists in that particular man's context can create internal conflict regarding identity. When that performance is then disbursed digitally and left open for interpretation by others, the collapsing contexts can create a dilemma for college men. "That's not what I meant by that." "You misunderstood..." "I'm really not THAT guy." As an example: a college male may share a post objectifying women because of a masculine role defined by peers, but by doing so may jeopardize an opportunity for a summer internship. So identity confusion for men negotiating masculinity among social systems is compounded by this idea that he doesn't even really know who is seeing what he's posting or how it's being interpreted. This is troublesome and something I look forward to investigating as I move forward with my planned research.

Brown brings up several great questions in his post: Are our students in "multiple worlds" at once? Do each of these worlds contain their own set of interactions, norms and rules? How do students "hold everything together" when they hop from app-to-app, world-to-world, and relationship-to-relationship on their smartphones? My responses: "Yes," "yes" and "I have no idea - it's a struggle, but we can help!"

So what do we do about it? Context collapse is not really entirely preventable in a current college climate where our students exists in multiple social microsystems at once, nor should it be - learning to negotiate relationships and understanding both the scope of and differentiation within your social systems is vital to identity development. But there is an opportunity for education and guidance around context collapse. What are the soft skills that helps one navigate when one identity intersects with another? These might include:

1. Continued development of interpersonal skills
2. Understanding social and professional etiquette (though I understand the difficulties therein because of culture-specific understandings of both)
3. Recognizing politics of relationships and developing political savvy
4. Understanding consequences of social media mis-steps
5. Developing skills to "fail forward" - learning from struggles of balancing social systems in order to negotiate all relationships in positive ways

How do we engage students in the process of recognizing the complex nature of connections and relationships? Bringing in the idea of context collapse and understanding audiences - both imagined and constructed - and openly discussing how our performed identities are perceived and interpreted should be included in conversations.

I can't help but think of this valuable advice Egon Spengler once gave Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters. Spengler told Venkman never to cross the streams from the Proton Packs because of the dire consequences that may ensue. I think about context collapse in this way - we often warn students in very surface ways that posting and saying things online have potentially negative consequences and to be mindful of the crossover (i.e. "Don't cross the streams!"). But with the expanding use of social media, the streams are going to cross. And, as we saw in the epic final scene, the streams crossing can be messy but ultimately end up providing an opportunity for something positive (like beating Gozer and destroying the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, of course!). Crossing the streams may not result in the total protonic reversal of which Spengler warned us, but may actually spur identity development (both digital and non-digital) and push our students toward becoming more conscious of their social systems.

Thoughts? Ideas for how to address collapsing contexts in digital relationships? 

Confirmation Bias via Social Media

 "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck

That statement is a pretty cynical view of the ability to argue and reason via dialogue, but it may well sum up where we are in the burgeoning golden age of social media. As we enter the point of global social media saturation, the use of the medium informs - and skews - our ability to share multiple perspectives. Ironic, isn't it? That the medium that seemingly shrinks the distance between people and ideas is often actually limiting us in our rational dialogue? Of course at its best social media provide terrific formats for conversation, idea sharing and knowledge acquisition. But unmediated, open venues are spaces where bullheaded persuasion is the key to determining what information has value. 

The truth now, according to Cordelia Fine, is "established less by the noble use of reason than by the stubborn exertion of will." This stubborn exertion of will is our commitment to our own ideas - to sticking to our beliefs and mindsets.

According to Stanovich, West and Toplak (2013), confirmation bias (or "myside bias") occurs "when people evaluate evidence, generate evidence, and test hypotheses in a manner biased toward their own prior opinions and attitudes." Confirmation bias is when we agree with something because it supports or aligns with what we already believe. It can be dangerous and limiting to our ability to have rational conversations and it's being amplified by social media.

You've likely heard Twitter being referred to as an "echo chamber."  An idea is shared and it's regurgitated over and over and suddenly it's just what 1,000 others have said and it loses it's impact. I first heard this term from T.J. Logan and have carried it with me when thinking about how I share and interact on social media. The echo chamber encourages and promotes confirmation bias - it keeps us in the same circles of thought and locks us into patterns of acting.

It's the easy thing to do, though. We fall in line with what others are saying. We take the popular perspective and tell ourselves we agree with it and then refuse to bring in other perspectives. (And even when we say we're open to other perspectives, our actions and words don't always support that. It's true. Don't deny it... we all do it).

Confirmation bias is the exact opposite of what we tell our students every day. We help our students move away from dualistic thinking from the moment they walk in the door, yet we often end up seeing ideas as "right" and "wrong" online. As a result, our actions in promoting our "right" and denouncing the "wrong" are not helpful models of rational thought and positive dialogue.

Many of us put off anything that might challenge us or make us uncomfortable - anything that falls outside our comfort zone. Behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner called this cognitive dissonance - when something we hold true or right is challenged and it pushes us to question our own beliefs... to question if what we thought was "right" is actually right anymore. But allowing outside perspectives to challenge us drives us toward conversations that eliminate duality and promote the very thing we encourage students to do - think globally, think from varied and diverse perspectives, respect the opinions of others. Social media gives us a powerful tool for letting other perspectives influence us if we take off the blinders of confirmation bias and avoid the echo chamber.

We see confirmation bias show through on big, vital, human topics like Ferguson and Eric Garner. But we also see it sneak into trivial, everyday conversations like college football playoff rankings. But letting confirmation bias affect thinking on the small things (like college football) trains us to let it affect how we think about critical moral and ethical issues (like privilege and race).

In his book "Digital Leader," Erik Qualman talks about the role we have in social media to create awareness and engagement. Qualman writes "Remember that influence has surpassed information in terms of importance because information is cheap and easily accessible." Reason, influence and dialogue evidently are not as cheap. So how are you using your digital influence to encourage dialogue? How are you avoiding confirmation bias in your digital engagement to allow others space to share, learn and grow regardless of whether their opinion is different than your own?

Our innate motivation to connect to those who share our point of view is important, but it's finding significance in arguments and opinions in opposition to our own thinking that make us better critical thinkers and better educators, particularly in the digital spaces we occupy. I hope we can all agree on that.

The #MenInSA Series: To Bro or Not to Bro

This entry is also posted on The Student Affairs Collective as part of the #MenInSA series

What does it mean to be a man in Student Affairs? I must preface this post by admitting that I have never really spoken to other men about what it means to be a man in this field. I won't generalize the masculine Student Affairs professional experience or try to assume that what I have experienced provides the lens through which other men see their experience, but I can be honest and say that I haven't given the relationship between my gender and my job much thought. But that's the way it often is with men, right? - we don't think of ourselves as gendered beings.

We have about 35-40 staff members who regularly attend Student Life Division functions at my institution. Of those, only 5 are men. So do I think about gender at work? Sure. When I look around the room in most meetings and see only women, it crosses my mind. But more as an observation and less about the power or influence I may have without even being fully aware of it. After all, I did not create the system that gives me an advantage as a man, but I recognize that I am able to simply follow my privilege through the door each morning - something many of my colleagues can't experience.

When I do think of what it means to be a man in Student Affairs, I reflect on my personality and the stereotyped personality of men in this field. I'm 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds. I'm not a small man. Combine that with being introverted and much more likely to listen than speak and I have earned the tag of "being intimidating." Intimidating is not a phrase we often place on those in Student Affairs.

Colin Stewart wrote a post for the #MenInSA blog this month and he said "Being a man in Student Affairs means constantly challenging stereotypes that men aren't all aggressors, dominant, jokers, jocks, idiots or strong silent types. Men can follow, listen, be intelligent, creative, be sensitive, be affectionate and be good partners." I appreciate Mr. Stewart's message because it highlights an unfortunate perspective many in our field have about the need to have all of those qualities be mutually exclusive. We need jocks, we need jokers and we need strong silent types in this field to relate to our male students and bridge the gap between who many of our students are and the men who serve them. Jocks, jokers, strong silent types and even "bros" are capable of following, listening, being creative and sensitive, etc. Contrary to popular belief, being a bro isn't an affliction; being a bro is a complicated and important part of a man's learned behavior. If we are able to understand how our masculine identity intersects with other aspects of our lives, we have the ability to help our bros evolve.

The man mask is most often used to describe how men put on a façade in order to live out socially-constructed definitions of what it means to be manly. Men - often college men - put on the mask to align actions with what they perceive culture's understanding of masculinity to be. The stereotypical man mask is not the image we have of men in Student Affairs. My experience shows me that many male professionals in Student Affairs are forced to put on the man mask to connect with male students. But I find that the mask I put on is one that allows me to fall into what is assumed of men in Student Affairs - "touchy feely," outwardly sensitive, emotionally expressive. It's not that I don't possess these attributes, it's that I feel as though I need to put on the "Student Affairs man mask" in order to live up to the assumed role I should play as a professional.

In an ironic twist, I often feel disadvantaged by not being a gay man. You laugh, but I have been asked many times over the years if I am gay (and often they point to my earring as some sort of indicator. No joke). When I sheepishly admit to being heterosexual, I hear "I kind of assumed most men in res life were gay." Because there's an unfair assumption that in order to do Student Affairs work well, male professionals must possess qualities that are generally associated with gay men (another unfair assumption). So how do I reconcile society's expectations of me as a man versus what a male Student Affairs professional should be versus who I truly believe myself to be? That's a lot of existential thinking, even for a strong silent type.

We've come to understand that the "guy code" can be detrimental to developing healthy masculine identities and that "bro culture" inhibits the men on our campuses from expressing emotion, demonstrating care and understanding their privilege. But what if my default setting is rooted in the code? What if I feel as though I've evolved to place of comfort in understanding my masculinity and can still feel connected to other men by being a "bro"? And not the hipster kind of ironic "being a bro," but actually connecting with and understanding the role that the "guy code" plays in the journey to manhood.

Do I have privilege in my profession because I'm a man? Absolutely. Seen or unseen, conscious or not, I do. But the distinct advantage I have within my own gender is one of understanding how men in Student Affairs can play multiple roles. Feel like that’s not authentic? I’d argue playing multiple (but connected) roles as a man in this field makes you infinitely more genuine than the man who simply finds one mask he likes. So to all the men in Student Affairs, don't strive to be the anti-bro - understand the vital role that both the man mask and the Student Affairs man mask play in your lives as professionals.