How to Engage Productively on Social Media as a Teacher

It was 2017, and I was literally shaking as my wife tried to console me.

PBS NewsHour had just posted what I thought would be an insightful but otherwise harmless story I had written about the importance of teaching high school students the unvarnished truth about Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving. Even the headline, “Teaching Kids About Thanksgiving or Columbus? They Deserve the Real Story,” hardly seemed provocative. Or so I thought.

The story went viral online, prompting an avalanche of responses—some supportive, but thousands of others sharply personal. Often hiding behind anonymous usernames, commenters accused me of “woke” revisionism, threatened to contact my school to have me fired, and, in two cases, escalated to messages that raised concerns about my safety. When I contacted the police, they advised me not to engage, noting the limited options available.

That experience changed how I engage publicly online. It showed me how quickly disagreement can turn toxic—and how, once that happens, the goal stops being understanding and devolves into winning attention.

Many Platforms Reward Provocation and Outrage

I’ve felt that level of anger returning on social media, especially in commenting threads about AI in education. The posts that attract the most attention are almost always the most provocative, not the most thoughtful. As a teacher and education writer who strives to be measured and insightful, I find this very frustrating. What makes it even more disappointing, however, is that some of the personal insults come from educators themselves—in online spaces where we are meant to talk with one another.

This gets under my skin in a way that’s hard to explain. With this in mind, I wanted language for what I was seeing that went beyond “people behave badly online.” I wanted to understand how and why those behaviors get rewarded.

That search led me to Outrage Machine: How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy—and What We Can Do About It, by Tobias Rose-Stockwell. The book put names to patterns I had sensed but couldn’t articulate, like how social media platforms reward escalation and how outrage reaches more eyeballs than nuance.

After finishing his book, I reached out to Rose-Stockwell to discuss why those dynamics show up in online spaces for teachers. “Understanding the incentive structure of social media is one of the best antidotes to this,” Rose-Stockwell told me. “It doesn’t resolve the problem entirely, but it helps you name it while it’s happening.”

“Incentive structure,” I learned, means the set of rewards that determine how people behave online (including teachers). These are rewards that we learn to chase almost instinctively, even without noticing how they guide our choices. Teachers aren’t immune.

How the Machine Pulls You In

As he spoke, in fact, I thought about my own past. I’m not proud to admit it, but I had fallen into the outrage machine, reaching for more sensational headlines to chase clicks.

In August, I published a post about ChatGPT-5, and it took off in online education spaces. The unfortunate part is that I didn’t believe generative AI had “no place” anywhere, as the headline said. If I’m being honest, I chose that framing because I knew it would draw attention.

As Obi-Wan Kenobi warns, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” I find this line fitting because it frames certainty as a temptation rather than a virtue—one I take seriously. Online, however, certainty travels faster. It’s easier to quote and more tempting to “like” and “share.” I understood that when I wrote the headline, and I accepted it anyway. I had baited people—fellow educators I deeply respect—into outrage. Unlike in the PBS NewsHour piece, I knew exactly what I was doing. For that, I apologize.

To be clear, much of the outrage directed at me for my ChatGPT-5 article, especially its headline, now feels earned. As Rose-Stockwell reminds us, outrage online can be warranted—just like outrage in real life.

“The key isn’t to avoid outrage,” he said. “It’s to make sure it’s anchored in what’s true, guided by sound epistemics, and still tempered by humanity.” He clarified that “sound epistemics” meant the basic discipline of truth-seeking—being clear about what you know versus what you suspect, or calibrating your claims to match your evidence.

Here are a few takeaways from my conversation with Rose-Stockwell for teachers who want to share publicly, via responses, short posts, or longer pieces, without getting devoured by the machine.

Write for clarity, not clicks. I try to treat that as a warning and resist sharpening a headline past what my thinking can support.

Protect your attention as part of the work. As he put it, “The dose makes the poison.” That means writing, posting, and then stepping away—not waiting at your device for replies to respond to immediately. Don’t let a platform pull you into cycles of constant checking, tweaking, and second-guessing. Set guardrails.

Make your claim match your evidence. Before I post, I separate what I’ve actually seen and learned in my own classroom from what I’m assuming. That habit keeps the writing honest and grounded.

Even when my device is turned off and out of sight, I still struggle with the itch to check social media. Rose-Stockwell encouraged me to try Opal, an app that allows you to “track your screen time” and “block distractions.” The free version, which I’ve used for the past two weeks, has made me much more aware of my screen time.

“I think mitigating the amount of time that you’re spending on these networks can make a huge difference,” Rose-Stockwell said. “Really trying to reduce your usage will help your mental health.”

Choose Engagement on Purpose

The next question is when to engage (if at all) on social media. Here, too, Rose-Stockwell helped me clarify how and when to enter conversations:

Know what content you’ll engage with. Some people want to provoke a reaction rather than have a discussion. Disagreement can be productive, but bad-faith attacks and personal insults are a red flag. Don’t engage.

Respond to clarify your thinking, not to persuade critics. When you reply on social media, explain your position clearly for others following the conversation. Don’t try to convince someone committed to misunderstanding you.

Use side-channeling when a conversation feels worth continuing. Moving a discussion out of a public thread and into a more private space can refine tone and reduce misinterpretation.

Let the structure of the space guide your participation. Social media platforms that sort by engagement often reward controversy. In spaces without clear norms or moderation, stepping back is a reasonable choice.

Don’t feel obligated to respond to everything. One hostile comment can outweigh many thoughtful ones. “That’s human,” he reminded me.

I still think about my PBS piece, especially the fear and anger. But I also think about what happens when teachers do engage thoughtfully: Conversations deepen, nuance survives, and we model for our students what it looks like to hold strong convictions while remaining open to complexity. In 2026, this is worth protecting.