Currently reading Shiffman & Wester (2025): “Scientists no longer find Twitter professionally useful, and have switched to Bluesky.”

I have complained a lot about how I miss the old Twitter that was such an important tool for me a decade ago, and most importantly during the pandemic, and how I have been looking for, and into several different, alternatives. And here is a paper that confirmed my impression that science Twitter has moved over to Bluesky!

In their study, Shiffman & Wester (2025) report that the overwhelming majority (>75%) of scientists report that Twitter has become “much less useful” for professional networking, and almost as many for public science engagement and for learning about new developments in their fields. Interestingly enough, about half the respondents still have a Twitter account (why?) but use it much less or not at all now (again, then why keep it?).

Most of the scientists now active on Bluesky report that they did not join Bluesky because they were drawn by its benefits, but because, they were invited by colleagues or, as Shiffman & Wester quote a respondent, “(1) Twitter started to suck and (2) all the cool people were moving to Bluesky“. At the same time, they appreciate that the interface and functions are familiar from the good old times on Twitter.

So in summary, this article 100% confirms my gut feeling (but it is very nice to have this investigated properly so I can give advice based on scientific investigations, not just on my gut ;-)) And speaking of advice, I would also like to point you to Shiffman (2025)’s introductory guide on “Social media for fisheries science and management professionals: How to use Bluesky and Instagram, and why you should” (which works super well also for other fields, you don’t need to work with fish!). I am not a big fan of Instagram any more (but, as you know, used to be) because of the way they work with algorithms and also because they changed the layout of my beautifully curated feed from square pictures to portrait pictures without a warning or option to opt out (still mad about that!), but the advice for how to use it if you so choose is very good.

What I am wondering about for my own professional social media use is how seriously I should take LinkedIn. I usually give the (and follow my own) advice to engage on platforms you enjoy being on. And to me, LinkedIn feels more like a chore than fun because of the messy interface, the ads, the algorithm, all the notifications everywhere. I do not like spending time on the platform at all. And overall it feels more like a “oh look at how cool I am!” bragging forum than actual engagement. On the other hand, I do see some very thoughtful engagement in some academic development pockets, and maybe I need to figure out if it is possible to curate my feed to only see those?

Shiffman, D. S., and J. Wester. “Scientists no longer find Twitter professionally useful, and have switched to Bluesky.” Integrative And Comparative Biology (2025): icaf127.

Shiffman, D. (2025). Social media for fisheries science and management professionals: How to use Bluesky and Instagram, and why you should. Fisheries, vuaf025.

Speaking of blue skies, I can offer some pictures with that, too! Beautiful South coast of Sweden…

And recently I have gotten so into the sun-through-leaves-looking-at-water pictures!

Always so beautiful to see the sea glittering in the sun!

And then a shift to the evening dip, soooo nice and calm!

Very different from the morning, but equally as awesome!