How Does Technology and Social Media Influence Social Change

In Todays world, Social Media plays a huge role is social activism. Hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have caused uproar over all social media platforms. Gladwell, Walton and Stephen all had different point of views on the uprise of social media. Gladwell was the first author I studied. Unlike the others, he has a clearly negative opinion towards it. He talks about the civil rights movement and boycotts that took place, and how they were more effective than social media. Walton, talks about the persuasiveness of social media, and how it effects society politically. Stephen focuses mainly on the black lives matter movement. He is definitely an advocate for hands on protest, instead of social media. He says that civil rights leaders can be monitored and can’t always say what they want to, but in person, anything goes. I, however, believe social media has its positives and its negatives when it comes to social activism. One major positive is how easily spread it is. One tweet can go viral and immediately get the attention of hundreds of thousands of people. Another positive is that it gives everyone equal opportunity for their voice to be heard. A lot of people are able to express their opinions on social media, who are too scared to voice their opinion in “real life”. This can also be a negative. Today, people feel way too comfortable behind a screen and often say things that they would never say in person. For example, if you log on to twitter, you can instantly find arguments. Whether it be over politics are sports, arguments run wild on social media. A lot of these arguments happen between two people that have no ides who each other are, and sometimes they can get serious, and its obvious that they are just acting tough behind a screen. 99% of the time, these internet tough guys would not say what they tweet in person. Even though these negatives do exist, I am definitely all for social media and I believe it has a lot more good than bad to offer society.