Social scientists are trained to avoid traditional social media in their professional capacities.

LinkedIn, a professional networking site, serves a strong social media function.

Overstating the importance of our work through self-promotion on social media erodes public trust.

Last week, I read two postings on LinkedIn that I’ve thought about every day since. The first was an essay extolling the virtues of social science. The argument went something like this: As social scientists, we’re dispassionately committed to finding the truth. When we’re proved wrong, we accept it and move on, so the truth, in the end, prevails. Society benefits as we become better and better at treating mental disorders.

One can take many issues with this argument, but let’s set those aside for the moment and consider the functions LinkedIn serves for social scientists. Until this year, I’d paid little attention to LinkedIn since shortly after it launched in 2003. At that time, LinkedIn was used mostly to find jobs, and I hadn’t been on the open market in decades. That changed when I recently left academia, so onto LinkedIn I went.

I expected the same old professional........

© Psychology Today