Jason Selby: Social Media and Slacktivism
Jason Selby is a senior who is graduating in August from the University of Oregon and is a PR major. A member of AEPi, Jason plans on working with the fraternity’s headquarters in the Summer.
Jason consumes media just like most millennials through a smartphone. He recently bought an iPad and has been consuming news through that and via e-mail with personally tailored news coming into his inbox each morning. He likes how that he is exposed to more than one view, and not only his own which can broaden his opinions. Jason prefers to have news delivered to him, he loves vice and its millennial focus.
His most used social media goes as follows: 1. Facebook, as it displays the stories and has different types of media. 2. YouTube, which many often forget is a social media video outlet. 3. Snapchat for seeing what friends’ are doing and posting his own “stories” as well as using snapchat discover and seeing the media outlets on there. 4. Instagram is good for being able to see just the photos that people like to share 5. LinkedIn is great for networking and being able to make job connections that will help people later on. 6. Twitter for the short updates that succinctly get across what the stories are. 7. Reddit is great to see other people’s opinions on things or their views on subjects that might not be something that the user does not know a lot about. Other social media outlets come together after that and is not used hardly as much.
He uses Facebook for news and the news of his friends, as well as their views on subjects. He keeps up the most with politics, sports, and fashion. Speaking of fashion, I asked Selby would he consider buying wearable tech and if so, what, he said he thinks it is the way of the future, and the tech is more focused on the consumers and it gets them involved with the technology and the experience. He would buy the flight simulators because he has tried them previously.
Selby also introduced me to something I already knew existed but I did not have a word for it, slacktivism. A google search of slacktivism leads us to “Actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement, e.g., signing an online petition or joining a campaign group on a social media website,” (Google books). Jason goes on to discuss how social media influences slacktivism.
“I think it is important to note that not everyone who posts on social media is a slacktivist. Obviously, a lot of world renowned thinkers and politicians and athletes and opinion leaders use social media, but the people who use social media to think that they have an impact, without actually going out into the field and embedding themselves with the issue, is what bothers me most. I like to post on social media frequently about my opinions, but I also travel a lot and have gotten to see a lot of what I speak about.”
In five to ten years Jason sees that social media could provide a false hope to people, he is into how slacktivism affects people and how “slacktivists” are people who are unaware of how small of an impact they truly have on their opinions when posting about it on social media. That is not enough, as we discussed in class, it is important to actually take action about the issues that we are passionate about and that is how the age old saying of actions speak louder than words rings true.
