With this somewhat provocative title I would like to raise a question, that of whether or not we – University teachers and researchers – should be residents of social medias. Do we need to be active there? I think the answer will depend on which type of residency we are considering: residency for professional purposes, or residency for private purposes.

For professional purposes, as I see it, there may be different advantages in using social medias such as LinkedIn, for example to spread news about conferences, publications, etc. Also, we can market ourselves thanks to social medias. Perhaps the « risk » is mainly that of being considered by the students to be available at all times. We can control this risk, for example by not being friends with students until they have finished their studies, or by setting some clear limit. I would also consider that social medias may be used as a complement, but not as the main tool for the communication with students. In particular, the bilateral (ie not for the whole group) communication with students should still be by e-mail and with the university’s e-mail system, precisely because it is owned by the University, but perhaps I am wrong. Of course there may also be a security risk, so we have a responsibility not to publish sensitive or confidentifal information. Considering the above, on the whole I am cautiously positive to using professional social medias for professional purposes.

Then comes the question of being resident of social medias for private purposes. This is, of course, a private question. Each of us is free to decide. However, what happens on social medias for private purposes can, in my view, more damage our professional image than improve it, if we cannot fully limit the access to our private digital life. Do you agree with this view? Moreover, we learnt during this course that we have a digital footprint that we can hardly control, so certain damage may become permanent when they get to the public domain. If we assume that we can sufficiently limit and control the digital presence on social medias for private purposes, the conclusion from this would be that yes, we can use social medias for private purposes.

How to then distinguish between private and professional use? How to deal with situations where the nature of the contact evolves, for example a former student becomes a friend, but has in his/her network people who still are students? I have unfortunately no general answer to this question, but only a personal one: I should be restrictive when using social medias, whether for private for professional purposes.