“Your daughter is really pretty,” he said. I visibly startled at his statement. How did my mid-20’s male student know anything about my 4-year-old daughter? When asked, he explained that he searched me on social media, did google searches, and connected the “digital dots” to find pictures of my family. That’s the day I silenced all any public social media accounts. You see, I’m very wary of “context collapse”—I want my professional life and academic life separate. Period.
Maybe it’s my background making me overly cautious. Again. Twenty years in the anti-violence against women movement has its’ effects, and I’ve found anxiety to be one of them.
Discussing identity means we must also analyze the social context of that identity. Teaching sociology and gender studies in the current political and social climate can be unnerving (at best). Angry students are commonplace in these classrooms—but now those angry students feel empowered to act. I know I’m not the first female professor to be followed to her car…. Right?
I understand that I could create professional social media accounts; however, as a full-time, part-time lecturer, that smells like unpaid labor– more time stolen 30 seconds at a time with re-tweets and “likes” and online banter.
So, I’m going to leave my personal life behind the curtain. That beautiful 4-year-old daughter? She’s turning 9 in July—and she totally kicks ass. And my focus during #DigPINS? Boundaries. What are my boundaries? What am I willing to give, and what do I need to hold back? Stay tuned.
Wow. What a powerful example of the eerie feelings that attend the reality of our digital world. Yes, boundaries. There are times when I think I am hardly interesting enough to be cyber stalked or tracked. But this post reminded me that you have to take proactive steps to create boundaries.
I echo Damien’s comment. The notion of context collapse in 2019, especially for those of us who teach online courses, certainly provokes concerns regarding boundaries both for ourselves and also for our students. Online teaching requires us to engage our students in the digital world, but how do we balance discussion, interaction, and privacy? For instance, I don’t google my students, but I realize that they may google me. After a recent google search, I discovered that my wedding registry was still floating around the web despite thinking I had shut it down years ago! Do my students or colleagues (or anyone else for that matter) need to know the details of my honeymoon wish list? I think not.
The comment from your student *is* startling. We have all google stalked someone or other. I’m not surprised a student would search his professor but I am surprised he would mention it to you; that part is startling and a bit scary. Your response to lock down your profiles makes perfect sense. Boundaries are an interesting personal question and also an interesting social question. Why have we all allowed our boundaries to relax? The trade off for convenience has been too tempting.