The Social Media Placebo
Friday, November 12th, 2010Last month, Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point) wrote an article for the New Yorker, discussing the role of social media in social activism, concluding that the social media “revolution”, as it were, is actually counterproductive with regards to actual revolution, or at least any lasting change.
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. We are a long way from the lunch counters of Greensboro.
I agree with Gladwell, based on my own personal experience with “activism”, or at least political dissent online. There are countless Facebook groups, blogs, and tweeters that I have followed who are in line with my personal politics, and yet none of them encourage me to really DO anything. At best I’ll sign a petition or write a Congressman.
Those passive forms of activism allow me to feel like I’m doing ~something~ without really committing, and not just because I’m lazy or disinterested, but because no physical initiatives ever seem to emerge from these groups. This is especially true of the Left – and by that I mean the real Left, not self-proclaimed “liberals”, who, incidentally, seem far more active.
It’s pretty clear that without any sort of formal leadership or organizational structure, that there will never be any sort of revolution, because that which keeps the status quo in place is a highly organized and well-oiled machine decades in the making. A rowdy band of misfits, as well-intentioned or self-righteous and indignant as they can be from the comfort of their living rooms or offices, really aren’t doing much of anything to change anything.
Mind you, I count myself amongst those who are doing nothing, and I wish that wasn’t the case.
This is not to say that there are not people who are truly active, but that they go largely unnoticed by the general public, seen as a nuisance, or perhaps as asking for too much. People said the same thing about the Civil Rights Movement, too. And in the generations since, we’ve been increasingly conditioned to accept the status quo.
There has been a sense of powerlessness, mitigated to some extent by surges of political activity every two years, and even that is largely ineffective due to the tyranny of the two-party system. Social media, though, is the new placebo, satisfying the desire to do at least something about all the things we know to be wrong in the world, without committing bodily or any real expectations of making a difference.
This is only where the problem began. The employee bumbled a number of things, starting with charging us $30 for a new SIM card which was supposed to come with the iPhone – we knew this because she had just purchased one a month earlier. But the bigger blunder came when he failed to even ring her up for the Black Tie plan, after she mentioned it several times. Of course it would be just our luck that the phone would fall and the screen would crack a few days later. Only upon bringing the phone back to Best Buy to take advantage of the protection plan do we realize his mistake.
Enter the little bird.