Don’t worry, I haven’t suddenly gone political here on Life in the Fastpitch Lane. But there definitely is a need to be careful about what you find on social media when you’re looking for information on how your daughter or players can become better hitters, pitchers, fielders, catchers, etc.

Here’s the primary issue, which I think many parents and team coaches don’t seem to realize: anyone can call themselves a coach and post videos on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter X, or whatever your favorite platform is.

That’s right, anyone. There are no qualifications or tests required to say you are a pitching expert, or a hitting expert, or a fielding expert, or anything else.

Sure, there are certification and training programs; I’ve completed several rigorous programs as a matter of fact. But it’s not like there’s a Board somewhere that checks up on what coaches post on social media and calls them out or pulls their certifications if it’s demonstrably incorrect.

Which means anyone can post anything, whether it’s good, bad, nonsense, or even downright harmful without any overall authority evaluating the validity of that information.

And this can be true of famous names in fastpitch softball as well as someone you’ve never heard of before. It’s amazing how many great players past and present have no idea how they actually do the things they do (or did).

Here’s the second issue that comes into play: social media is a hungry beast. You constantly have to feed it with new posts in order to maintain a healthy social media presence.

That can be harder than you think. So for those who are dependent on social media likes, clicks, and shares to drive their businesses, they must develop and post new content on a regular basis, often multiple times per week, to sustain their presence.

You can see where this is headed. Once they’ve exhausted all their good, proven drills and other material, the need to post is still there.

So they end up posting a lot of crazy stuff that looks cools and draws eyeballs but has little to do with hitting, pitching, throwing, or catching a softball. If it also helps promote their latest product gimmick so much the better.

It’s definitely a case where the buyer must beware, because if you follow some of this garbage down the rabbit hole and your daughter’s/players’ performance suddenly falls off, or she/they get hurt, it’s your daughter/players who will pay the price. In the meantime, the “coach” who posted the bad content moves on to the next crazy drill.

So what are you supposed to do? If you’re a well-meaning parent or coach, how do you separate the good from the bad?

One way to do that is to look for the “why” behind the “what.” Did the poster explain why the drill or other instruction exists, what problem it is trying to solve, how it will solve it, etc.? Or did he/she merely post the demo and say “have at it?”

A coach who is looking out for his/her players/students will want you to understand the purpose behind the drill or technique or product if there is one, as well as exactly how it solves the issue.

It’s then up to you to apply some common sense to determine whether what’s being presented seems like it will actually solve the intended issue or make it worse. Or even create a new, bigger issue in the process (see: the law of unintended consequences).

You might also want to do a little more research on the issue itself to see if what’s being presented in the social media content is aligned with what others are saying, and what you see the best players in the world doing, or if it’s more of an outlier.

Now, if it’s different it doesn’t necessarily mean the new content is wrong. Breakthroughs and new discoveries happen all the time.

But if it goes against the science in particular, you might want to let others try it first to see how it works out for them before jumping into that new technique yourself.

Remember that the great thing about the Internet is that there’s a lot of information out there. And the bad thing about the Internet is that there’s a lot of information out there.

It can be hard to tell the good from the bad.

But if you take a little time to think things through and dig below the surface or the excitement of finding a shiny new object, you can save yourself a lot of wasted time and money in the long run.

Lead photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com