For years I have actively avoided this so-called social media world. A self confessed ‘technophobe’, living life blissfully unaware of blogs, tweets and hastags. Nevertheless, with a bit of kind peer pressure I recently joined the twitter world and contributed my first blog – ‘What is honour?’ to the Sociology and Criminology Blog at Keele. My first draft, full of references, was returned to me with a very diplomatic message suggesting that this was not quite what was meant by a blog. Yet with a little bit of editing I managed to post my first ever blog; and despite my initial reluctance it wasn’t so bad!
It is possible to forget, as we sit in solitary confinement at our desks with our litre of coffee, buckets of enthusiasm and a mound of literature, that the academic world is highly competitive. We are not just required to make an original contribution to knowledge, we must also learn to ‘sell ourselves’ in a competitive job market. The social media has emerged as a key way of doing this, and this technological scheptic must accept that the virtual world is very much a reality, and one in which I must join if I want to make myself known.
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