Social Media and Activism

"Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice"  (Gladwell).

 

 I agree a great deal with this quote from Gladwell's article and understand where he is coming from.  In the article he talks about the research that a large number of people in the thousands have contributed to causes and made donations but they have averaged out to pennies a piece.  Is social media making a difference in the way of activism today?  I have to say that I think it is a great tool for raising awareness for causes and things that are going on, but I don't think that it is necessarily the tool for causing change.  

Yes I think that social media can create some change by allowing people to voice their opinions and creating lists of people to sign a petition to get something changed.  Unfortunately, from my own experience on Facebook I feel that there are so many posts to click "Like" or "Share" for spreading the word on anything and everything that I think that people are becoming saturated with so many causes that they no longer believe half of it any more or are becoming sensitized to the never ending "please join us" posts that pop up on their feed continually.  

I think that today and now to really bring awareness to a group, that they need to have a social media presence to reach more people and let themselves be known, but only those who are truly willing to do something outside of clicking and sharing will effect much true  and lasting change.  Gladwell states something to this effect in his article, "But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism" (Gladwell).

I have a personal experience in a situation where my husband and I decided to run a marathon in Iceland to raise $12000 for diabetes because he lost his father to the disease and when family and friends found out, they all chipped in to help us spread the word and to get a turn out to our fundraisers.  The paper did interviews and we set up a website and sent out e-mails and got a lot of response to the effect of "we love what your doing," but the core of the people that contributed and showed up were those that were close to those who were close to us.

So from my own experience, I think that I agree with this article that tight-ties that are close to the cause are going to be the actual motivators and those who go out and participate.

Works Cited

Gladwell, M. (2010). Small change: Why the revolution will not be Tweeted. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

Social Media and Citizen Journalists

While the availability of News and information has increased, I believe that Social Media has decreased the quality of media.  With everyday citizens being able to report and upload media from their phones and portable devices, we are bombarded now with stories, photos and videos being posted, uploaded, linked, liked and shared the instant they are taken, or viewed and passed on as indisputable fact.  As a result, we are now being able to hear of breaking news almost as soon as it happens and before traditional media is able to report it. 

While it is great to be able to learn breaking news much faster and from first hand accounts, the downside is that we are inundated with stories constantly and faster than we can viably check the reliability of sources and accuracy of content.  According to the Schools.com infograhic, “49.1% of people have heard breaking news via social media that turned out to be false.”  In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, “17% said they often find breaking news on social media sites that has turned out to be untrue. 32% said this has happened to them once or twice, and 51% said it has never happened to them (Pilon).”  These particular survey results are of no large surprise to me due to the nature of Social Media and the ease of clicking and “sharing” links and posts without actual investigation.  Sure there are a number of people that will investigate a news item before reposting it, but from personal experience, I have found people to be eager to repost or share the juiciest bit of news first without checking out the story itself.  Some great examples of this are in the article, 8 Social Media Hoaxes You Fell for This Year by Samantha Murphy on Mashable.com.  Many of you would likely remember at least one of them, myself having been shocked as I read the post “RIP Morgan Freeman”. 

The article also brings up another good point regarding these viral ‘news’ stories surrounding pop culture and celebrities.  They have become a platform for cybercriminals to attach malicious links and phishing traps.  The article speaks of a particular scam where Justin Bieber creates his own false news story about his laptop being stolen and a fake Tweet by the supposed thief planning to release a new video on-line as a publicity ploy.  Unfortunately, cybercriminals used that story to create malicious links to a phishing site.  These types of scams also happen quite often in Social Media which is another reason that I have my doubts as to the quality of the news on it.  It is all too easy to fall for an interesting headline only to click on a link and be brought to a suspicious site that fails to deliver. 

After thinking about the ramifications of this and how many scams and crazy posts that are shared daily I thought that it might be helpful to share this article I found on Security Watch.  It gives tips and advice on how to spot a phishing scam from a link or e-mail that may have come in your inbox or from a Social Media site.  I found it very informative myself:

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/spam/317892-how-to-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-emails-and-links

Sources

http://www.schools.com/visuals/social-media-news.html

https://aytm.com/blog/daily-survey-results/breaking-news-survey/

http://mashable.com/2012/11/05/social-media-hoaxes/

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/spam/317892-how-to-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-emails-and-links

  My Digital Sabbatical

    Lately, life has felt like a non-stop roller coaster of ups and downs at full speed.  Taking care of two small children, busy schedules, working and full time school has not left much time for anything else.  The Two day Social Media diet has allowed me to steal pockets of time that may have let get away on me other wise.  I found that taking the little bit of time to sit and talk with my kids or focus on them instead of feeling the need to check on things such as my e-mail has helped me to take some time to breathe.  

     I have also been guilty of checking back and forth from Facebook or Pinterest and school work while on-line and letting myself get easily distracted.  Before I know it, time has gotten away from me and I still have not accomplished much.  I have noticed that when I am focused on what I am doing and tune out all distractions that I get a lot more accomplished and in a much shorter time.  When I am distracted and my thoughts wander to other things, I find that I tend to feel a lot of anxiety and guilt about wasting time.   As a side effect of time being sucked up from being on line all of the time is that I not only feel guilt about being side tracked but I feel guilty about not having enough time with my relationships and family. 

     I have found on my sabbatical that I have been able to spend more time with my family, but also really focus on my time with them and not being distracted about other things.  I found that I had no desire to go on and check for updates and statuses but wanted to "tune out" the noise of the internet and focus more on the little things like taking walks.  
    
     I also discovered that it didn't bother me to have people ask about e-mail and why I haven't read any of it or responded.  Instead I felt that they were missing the bigger picture and noticed a reflection of my own distraction and insignificant worries.  

     I will definitely be spending less time on line and more time focusing on the important things in my life while I still have them.  

I found this blog with five positive effects of a digital sabbatical:
http://nathanrhale.com/benefits-of-taking-a-digital-sabbatical/

My Crazy Life!

I am a mother of two wonderful busy children ages 3 and 5.  One is in school and the other is home for another year.  I am in my final semester at Durham College for the Library Technician program and am looking forward to all that I will learn in this class!  I am currently completing a work placement at a high school library from 8:30 until 3:00 every day and work part time some evenings from 4 until midnight at a pharmacy.  I also just moved to the country on the weekend which is why I am so late getting to this!  I love my new home, my field placement and my program!  I just sent in a resume yesterday for a library Branch Assistant position and am crossing my fingers.  My life does not leave much time for sleeping but I wouldn't trade it.  I expect that this course is going to come in VERY handy in many aspects of my life!  
Cheers!