Public Employee Press

Cyberactivism
Their president tweets Local 1189 members


Besides heading city Psychologists Local 1189, Leonard Davidman chairs DC 37's Jewish Heritage Committee and serves as the president-elect of the New York State Psychological Association; he will become its president next year.

A voracious reader of newspapers and magazines, he is also the association's "media watchdog," tasked with keeping members up to date on political and professional issues through an email group.

Recently, Davidman added another tool to his communications arsenal, Twitter. For the only DC 37 local president with a Ph.D., tweeting has quickly become - to use a psychological term - an obsession.

"I love it," Davidman said.

For psychologists, Twitter is a powerful tool for sharing information and exchanging ideas. It provides an important sounding board for professional concerns and workplace and political issues. The challenge to is to be concise, because Twitter limits messages, called tweets, to 140 characters and a link to a media post or YouTube video.

In recent tweets, Davidman has shared a lot of useful information with his 159 followers. You can search @DrLennyDavidman to get to his Twitter home, view his tweets and opt to follow him.

Davidman's tweets have covered such subjects as racism, suicide prevention, Internet addiction and the mainstream media's poor coverage of mental illness, as well as how raising the minimum wage would reduce poverty, Mayor Bill de Blasio's appointment of Robert Linn as labor commissioner and the union's recent celebration of Chanukah.

A recent tweet included a link to an article on Nelson Mandela, and his Twitter home has a link to a 20-minute YouTube video (https://twitter.com/DrLennyDavidman/media) in which he discusses issues affecting public-sector Psychologists.

While some Twitter users simply post items — mainly news stories — and use the service to find interesting reading, Davidman especially enjoys being part of the Twitter community. He sends users direct messages and retweets posts with his comments.

"One of my goals is to get our message to people in power," Davidman said. "Twitter is a good platform to discuss the concerns of Psychologists and unions."