Tag: Writing

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Social media isn’t social

Several months ago, I decided to give Substack another go at it. I had begun teaching a new philosophy course, so I thought it would be useful to share some of what I was thinking through and teaching via that medium (see “Trying Substack…again”). Admittedly, I was lazy about it. I didn’t post all that often. But when I did post, as many social media users may be able to relate these days, it was into the void. Social media used to be understood as the great democratizer. Anyone could have a voice and an audience. But, if we’re honest, even without the gatekeeping, social media has us back to the place where the biggest voices get all the interaction while the rest of us sit silently listening. Social media isn’t social. It’s not supposed to be. It’s just media now. Even Mark Zuckerberg has said that platforms like Facebook are about a whole bunch of things, social media being only a small part (see, for example, “Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over”). So, this morning, I abandoned Substack…again!

I’m still on Facebook, for family, older friends, and memories. I’m on Threads for information, and if I’m honest, probably an echo chamber! I’m on Instagram for the same reason as Facebook, but also to connect with former students, since they don’t use Facebook. Basically, my social media is limited to Meta platforms, begrudgingly. I tried BlueSky, and I wanted it to be good, but I think the age of social media has come to an end, at least for many of us, and unless someone does something radically different with the idea, sometime I can’t even ponder at the moment, or unless you’re younger and use TikTok and/or Snapchat, the days of social media being used for meaningful connection is mostly in the past. (I’m on LinkedIn too, but I’m not even sure what to make of it if your not job hunting.)

In part, I think this is a good thing. While I appreciate the globalization of our world, I don’t know that humans have evolved to be relational this way. I mean, how many “long distance” relationships are successful? And that’s what social media is, in a way. People who would have naturally faded out of your life as you moved, changed careers, or whatever, remain “friends” or, worse, “followers”. But as social media’s usefulness fades for many of us, we may see that community is usually embodied and present, not digital and distant.

As someone who is kind of introverted, this is sort of a bummer, I’ll admit. And I think for many who have needed social media for find “their people” because where one lives, or works, or whatever, doesn’t necessary align with who one is, this is a disappointing development. And maybe social media still has the capacity to connect people who would not otherwise find each other. That said, once found, it would appear that growing a true connection of depth will need to take place offline, at least in part, for most. Not because using social media is bad, but because social media isn’t designed by “big tech” to be really social anymore.

I admit developing a social media weariness even before this development. Maybe I spent too much time in my 20s and early 30s being a “keyboard warrior”? Maybe that led to burn out. But as the algorithm trained us to be passive observers on these platforms, I found that commenting back and forth, engaging, seemed like work. I’m not sure why, exactly. In my day to day life, I have reasons now: I’m a husband and a father of a toddler. I have a career that is demanding when it comes to attention and decision fatigue (anyone who teaches high school knows!). I live in a car-centric part of the country with a long to-and-from commute most days. I squeeze in things like reading books, and maybe dropping a blog post here once a month just to get some of my thoughts out of my head. Social media engagement doesn’t really fit in my 24/7 like it used to. But even before life became this busy, social media felt mundane. Whatever excitement there was for it a decade or two ago (I go all the way back to “MySpace”) is gone. It was fun while it lasted…I think?

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Classes I’d like to teach because of topics about which I’m curious (sports, video games, and growing up)

It’s a new year, so I’m thinking about new things. Next school year, I’ll be teaching the same slate of core class: “Philosophy of Human Flourishing”; “Religion in Global Context”; “Introduction to the Bible”. While I enjoy teaching all three of these, I’d like to someday, possibly teach courses on the following topics, because I’m curious about them:

1. “History and Philosophy of Games”

    This may be a 1.a and a 1.b option, maybe even a 1.c depending on what would draw the most interest from students (presuming that there would be any). 1.a would be “History and Philosophy of Games” but if that’s too broad, 1.b would be “History and Philosophy of Sports”. If 1.a was doable, I’d open with Unit 1, “What Is a Game?” I’d consult the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein but also Bernard Suits (The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia), Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World), and the philosopher who I’m currently reading: C. Thi Nguyen (Games: Agency as Art). Unit 2 would likely focus on, for lack of a better word, physical games ranging from baseball to Uno, or “sport” if the former idea is too broad. Unit 3 would likely focus on video games. Each unit would begin with a history of those types of games. I’m not sure what other lessons I’d add yet, though I imagine.

    If this is too much to stuff into one class, then my 1.b option would just be, as mention, “History and Philosophy of Sports” and my 1.c option would be “History and Philosophy of Video Games”. Both of these topics would be much easier to plan for separately. Paradoxically, I don’t play video games all that much, but they were a massive part of my childhood, so I find them interesting still. I watch a ton of sports, but don’t play much. I think the history and philosophy of sports would be easier to create, as I’m more familiar, but I imagine, if somehow I could incorporate some video game play time into the class, the history and philosophy of video games would be a lot more fun to create/teach.

    2. “Philosophy for Becoming an Adult” or “Philosophy for Adulthood”

    I imagine this being an elective for seniors. Unit 1 would focus on meaning-generation. I could see myself teaching lessons on what major philosophical and religious traditions have presented as the meaning of human life. (For the religious traditions, I could use Stephen Prothero’s four key components of religions (problem, solution, technique, and exemplars) which might map onto schools like Stoicism, Epicureanism, Confucianism, etc.

    Then, Unit 2 would focus on relationships. Maybe something related to Confucius’ ranking of relationships and teachings about filial piety combined with something on friendship (maybe consulting Robin Dunbar’s Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships) and maybe something—if I’m brave—on romantic relationships, though I’d be super cautious about this, and may want to choose some novel angle. Unit 3 would focus on work and career, maybe built around Matthew Hammerton’s “What Is Wrong with Workism?” Hammerton mentions Aristotelean “perfectionism,” which would be worth a lesson in itself. I think a discussion of AI’s relationship to work and whether we want a “post-work future” would be a great fit here.

      An introduction to ethic could be a lot of fun too.

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      The focus of this blog

      I decided to change the name of this blog from “LePortology”—which sounded kind of “cool” but also a little pretentious, especially since I’m hardly offering anything like a system of thought that can be tied to my name—to “The blog of Brian LePort” which is purely descriptive but probably more honest. Besides my concern for unearned hubris, why change the name? Well, how to put it: I’m a person, not a brand. I want to write about what I want to write about. In general, that will continue to be philosophy, religion, theology, and pedagogy, but honestly, sometimes I’m just interested in fatherhood, or events in my home state of California, or where I live now in Texas, or in the United States, in general. Maybe I want to say something cautious about politics (probably not). Maybe I want to share a podcast episode that I think is interesting, but that doesn’t match the “focus” of this blog as it’s been.

      It’s not like I have a huge audience who comes to this blog to hear my professional insights on a specific topic! (My old “biblioblog” has been “retired” for over a decade and still it gets far more hits that this blog does! For example, it got 66 view yesterday while this one got…7.) I write this blog for myself. I write here because I like to write. I write here so I can “see” my thoughts. I write here because writing is an art and it’s fun to play with words, and then touch up those words to see if what I said can be said more clearly or more interestingly.

      In the modern world of social media, there’s a focus on building a platform, gaining an audience, and monetizing it all. I can’t judge. The old blog that I just mentioned opened a lot of door for me, made me connections, got me free books, and even earned me a little bit of money for a time. I mean, nothing like a TikTok influencer or podcaster now, but it had its perks. And I think that there remains something to having a focus and a theme, which is why I’ve started my Substack “Philosophy of Human Flourishing”. It gives me something to hone in on. But also, I just like writing, and I like thinking, and those two work well together for me, so I want this blog to be a place where I can combine those two activities freely.

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      Why do I blog?

      Blogging may be an outdated form of media. I don’t think it’s dead like say MySpace. There remain many popular blogs out there. I presume their readership is mostly Gen X and older Millennials. But even if it isn’t dead, it’s not popular. You don’t start a blog in 2024 if you want to get a message to the masses. You get on TikTok, I presume.

      The most “relevant” social media platform with which I engage is Instagram. Facebook is ads mixed with sadness, though it’s how I remain connected to many people. Threads is coming alive but nothing I share seems interesting to the people on there…or the algorithm! “X” is scary. I left that dystopia long ago. I’m not going to touch something like Snapchat. And though I have peers who have done well with TikTok, I’m not interested.

      This is because I don’t blog for a big audience. I blog to keep myself writing with frequency. I blog because unlike keeping a private Word document to record my thoughts, occasionally people can read what I write here, enjoy it, share it, and even respond to it. But I don’t look for that sort of response in the same way social media influencers do. It’s more like when blogging first began in the late 2000s and there was the joy of being able to write and be read by a handful of people with similar interests. That was my favorite part of blogging culture and it remains so.

      It’s funny because for a long while, I had a blog that was very popular by blog standards. I know these stats don’t match the stats someone might get on YouTube or TikTok but my most “successful” blog has seen almost 1.5 millions views in its lifetime and about a half-a-million unique visitors. There was a day when over seven thousand people visited back in 2013.

      This blog was central to me finding my way when I moved to San Antonio. One person who read it, Greg Richards, directed “College Missions” for the Diocese of West Texas of the Episcopal Church (for whom I work indirectly now). He was my first connection with the denomination that is tied to the school where I work and he was one of the people who wrote me a recommendation when I applied for the job I’ve had for more than eight years now. Another person was Dr. Rubén Dupertuis at Trinity University here in town. He gave me two opportunities to be a “Teaching Intern” which helped my resume. Also, he wrote me a recommendation letter. So, my old blog helped me network somewhere new. This networking helped me find the job that I have now. I’m grateful for that old blog!

      I had a few other blogs that started, failed to gain any readership, and/or were closed because I gave up on the theme upon which it was anchored. (For example, when I was on the doorstep of leaving Pentecostalism permanently, I abandoned a blog with the clever name “Azusa Remixed” that tried to gather together Pentecostal and Pentecostal-friendly but also forward thinking writers to talk about a future for Pentecostalism. When I knew my vision wasn’t going to match reality, and that reality was that I didn’t belong in Pentecostal circles anymore, I shut down the project. On a side note, the old saying that the Internet doesn’t forget isn’t true. If you google “Azusa Remixed” you’ll find nothing about my blog that I can see though there’s some connection to an anime character!)

      I think Twitter was the beginning of the end of blogging supremacy as a novel way to communicate on the still young Internet. Now it’s something older people like me do. My old blog sits there without a new contribution since 2014 but it still gets about four times as many visitors every week as my current one. If you’re a reader of this blog, I’m grateful for you but clearly “readership” in the abstract isn’t my goal. My goal is to process my thoughts through writing. Blogging was the method of writing that has been the most successful at helping me develop consistency. So, because I value the connection between writing and thinking, and blogging helps me maintain that connection, I continue to blog.

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      Handwriting is good for the brain

      I’ve mention a few times that my students handwrite their notes, and their exit tickets, and pretty much everything. The #1 reason for this? I can’t compete with all the tabs open on their Internet browser. When I used to allow computers, engagement seemed impossible. It wasn’t clear that they were listening to me. It was easy to have a classmate send their notes by email or messenger, which could then by copied-and-pasted. This changed after I banned computers. Students became more likely to participate in class. And even if you copy your classmates notes, you have to take time to write them out yourself, which leads to more learning than copying-and-pasting.

      This leads me to the #2 reason: I think handwriting is better for learning. I can’t remember the book that I read years ago on this subject—it’s likely outdated and out of print now—but recent science seems to confirm that handwriting notes helps learning stick! For instance, earlier this year the article “Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom” was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology and they authors (F R Ruud Van der Weel , Audrey L H Van der Meer ) conclude:

      “When writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns were far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard, as shown by widespread theta/alpha connectivity coherence patterns between network hubs and nodes in parietal and central brain regions. Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning. Our findings suggest that the spatiotemporal pattern from visual and proprioceptive information obtained through the precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen, contribute extensively to the brain’s connectivity patterns that promote learning.”

      I’m not a scientist so I can’t evaluate these findings but PubMed has many other articles that seem to be making the same claim. My experience is anecdotal but even if there weren’t studies like this one that seem to support my hunch, I know I would continue to have my students write by hand because of the difference that I’ve experienced. And because I’m not as interesting as whatever is on tabs 7, 12, 28, and 39.

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      An assessment that I’m glad I gave (and how it relates to what I’ve been saying about biblical studies)

      As the past quarter drew to a close, I introduced a new assessment to my students: a “Quarterly Writing Assessment”. I asked them to write a short response (ten sentences minimum) to a prompt that in summary asks them to tell me one thing they’ve learned that has changed their perspective/shifted their paradigm; one thing that would be missing from their education if they hadn’t taken my class.

      For my own psychology, I’m glad I gave this assessment. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether students are really learning anything. How much are they memorizing for a quiz or test? How much are they turning your required work into passing busy work? Will it stick?

      As I’ve been grading these assignments, I’m heartened. My “Introduction to the Bible II: The Christian Scriptures” students have been telling me about how they’ve come to recognize the Bible’s internal diversity; how interpretive paradigms have shifted over time; how it’s ok if someone else interprets the Bible differently; how “messianism” as a concept has shifted how they look at Jesus as “Christ”; how the differences between the Gospels has influenced who they understand Jesus to be; why Mark’s Jesus is so secretive about his identity and John’s Jesus is so loud about it; how Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and in his parables have them pondering why Jesus favored the oppressed and marginalized.

      My “Religion in Global Context” students have told me that they understand why studying religion is important; how religious illiteracy has negative consequences; how they’ve realized that not all religions look alike; how they’ve realized that there’s no single way to define “religion”; how they’ve learned a bit about Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam; how they’ve been introduced to questions about reality and metaphysics through Indian philosophical categories (e.g. Brahman, Atman, karma, samsara, moksha, dharma) in ways that have them rethinking what they understand to be “real”.

      My “Religion in the United States” students have told me how they learned about the diversity of Christianities in the original Thirteen Colonies and adjacently how diverse Christianity is; how the Founding Father’s views of Christianity weren’t monolithic; how some Founding Fathers (e.g. Samuel Adams; John Jay; John Witherspoon) may receive approval from confessional/creedal Christians today while others (George Washington; John Adams; Thomas Jefferson) are more complicated; the importance of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment; the role of the Supreme Court and IRS in shaping how Americans view “religion” and how religion is practiced here; the nature of Indigenous American religion.

      As I read what my students wrote, I felt like each class was indispensable to their education. It made me proud of what our catalog offers. The funny thing is this: I think we need a class on ethics and I think we need a class introducing philosophical thinking. Since students have to take only 2 semesters of religion to graduate, I don’t know where these classes fit or if they do fit at all. I do know that as frustrated as I may be at times when it comes to teaching religion in a world where STEM is squeezing the humanities to death, I don’t doubt for a second that our society needs what our humanities classes have to offer.

      I want to return to my biblical studies students because I’ve been writing a lot about those classes the past few days. First, I mentioned that I’m faced with an existential crisis when teaching this class. I’m teaching the sacred texts of a dying institution in America: the Bible of the Christian Church. I’m aware that many of my students, presuming trajectories hold, won’t be reading their Bibles as adults and likely many won’t be part of any Church.

      This led to me reflect on how critical approaches to the Bible play a part in demystifying the Bible but also this act results in the eventual demise of biblical studies. As more and more people see the Bible as another human creation (and the Church as a human institution), fewer of them will be interested in it. Eventually, this will impact the future of biblical studies, shrinking our ranks, leading to the closure of our programs and our presses, because I’m confident that many biblical scholars entered biblical studies in order to have religious questions answered. The irony is that in our effort to dismantle dangerous forms of biblicism, we’re simultaneously depleting our “farm system” (to use a baseball term) because biblicist cultures give rise to future biblical scholars (or so I presume until empirical data proving otherwise is shown to me).

      Finally, I argued that critical approaches to the Bible remain the right approach, even knowing the consequences, because at this time and place (21st century United States), if we fail to help students deconstruct biblicist views of the Bible then biblicist views of the Bible will remain the default interpretation of the Bible. This isn’t to say that people will read the Bible accepting its authority through a biblicist paradigm alone. Many will reject the Bible outright presuming that the line that biblicist draw in the sand (read it as the inerrant “Word of God” or leave “the Church’s Bible” alone) is a real line that one either crosses or doesn’t. In other words, I think there’s a necessary gamble. If we want contemporary young people to mature into adults who show interest in the Bible as “wisdom literature” with which they can wrestle in a life-giving way—even non-Christians, just as I, a Christian, wrestle with the Vedas and Upanishads, the Dhammapada, the Quran, etc.—then we must show that the black-and-white paradigm of biblicism is a false dichotomy. If we want them to approach the Bible as a source for creative theological thinking, they must realize the Bible is a conversation-starter, not a conversation-ender.

      Do I wish we could skip past the deconstruction of biblicism in order to help students read the Bible wisely? Yes. Do I think we can do this without risking the effects of residual biblicism remaining with our students? No. I don’t see how we can lead students to a mature understanding of the Bible without dispelling the mythologies of our culture. If you doubt what I’m saying, go to Barnes & Noble. Walk through the section related to the Bible and to Christianity. Recognize that this is the dominant understanding of what the Bible is and what Christianity represents. Realize that many adherents to Christianity and readers of the Bible think the selection at Barnes & Noble is normative; recognize that many who reject Christianity and the Bible agree. This shouldn’t be. It doesn’t have to be. At least I hope it doesn’t have to be.

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      Can something like Google Chromebook combat ChatGPT?

      I realize the impracticality of moving to hand written assignments for many of my colleagues, especially those (e.g. English Department) who grade greater quantities of writing than I do. Is there a solution for them? I’ve noticed over the years when I create a “quiz” on Google Form that it has an option, if students are using Google Chromebooks managed by the school, to lock students to one tab. They can do their quiz on the Form but if they try to open another tab, it notifies the teacher. It’s called “locked mode”. Is this something that school administrations need to consider?

      I don’t know if this solves any problems related to students writing outside of class after school hours (i.e homework) but it could help with in class writing, especially if monitoring each students screen while they type is too much to ask (which it usually is).