From Junk Drawer to Toolkit
We have to stop treating social media like a junk drawer when we’re trying to use it as a professional learning tool. It’s extremely easy to save posts, follow pages, join groups, and collect resources with good intentions. The problem is that collecting information is not the same thing as learning. At some point, the pile gets so big that it becomes noise.
Muljana and Luo (2023) discuss the need for self-regulation when seeking internet solutions. The authors use Zimmerman’s self-regulated learning model as a framework for facilitating personal learning. Here are three steps that will assist the shift from aimless internet wandering to strategic research and problem solving:
First, start with a problem, not a platform.
Don’t open LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, or Facebook groups just to “see what’s out there.” That’s how the junk drawer starts. Instead, begin with a specific question: What am I trying to learn? What problem am I trying to solve? What decision do I need to make? A clear goal helps filter what deserves attention.
Second, check the source before you trust the advice.
Social media gives everyone a microphone, but not everyone has expertise. A polished post, attractive graphic, or confident tone doesn’t automatically mean the information is useful. We need to ask whether the advice fits our situation, whether the person has real experience, and whether the information lines up with what we already know from credible sources.
Third, apply and reflect.
The goal is not to save more resources. The goal is to improve practice. If you find a useful strategy, test it, observe the results, and decide whether it actually helped. Did it improve the process? Did it make learning clearer? Did it solve the problem? If not, it may belong back in the drawer.
Social media isn’t the problem. Aimless wandering is the problem. With intention, filtering, and reflection, the internet can become less of a cluttered drawer and more of a working toolkit.
References
Muljana, P. S., & Luo, T. (2023). Pursuing professional learning by using social media: How do instructional designers apply self-regulated learning? Research in Learning Technology, 31, Article 2934. https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v31.2934
Okay, the junk drawer is doing a lot of work here and I'm keeping it. My LinkedIn "Saved" folder is functionally a landfill with a nice UI, so this landed close to home.
ReplyDeleteWe got to the same place from opposite directions. I've been reading about social media and mental health, and Hussenoeder (2022) argues these platforms are already learning environments whether anyone designed them to be or not — teaching constantly, implicitly, as a side effect of you doing something else. That's your junk drawer from the platform's side of the glass. The pile isn't a discipline failure; it's the environment working as built. Collecting is the engagement.
Which is why I'd add one rung to your list. Your three steps are all behaviors — and behavior is the hardest layer to change first. Lee, Ellison, and Hancock (2023) split "agentic" social media use into mindset, literacy, and practices, and found mindset (do I run this, or does it run me?) predicted wellbeing better than time spent. Your source-checking step evaluates the person. But you never chose that polished post — it surfaced because it performed. So curate what you're shown, not just what you save. Unfollow the confident-and-useless genre; deliberately engage the two or three people doing real work. The drawer stops filling itself.
Honest pushback: "apply and reflect" is where every self-regulation model quietly dies. Nothing forces it. Mine is writing publicly — if I don't blog it, I didn't learn it. The deadline does what my intentions won't. What's your forcing function?