Monday, April 1, 2013

Is Online Activism Making us Lazy?



In the previous blog I spoke about how various sites, blogs and portals have diverged from the initial agenda of providing free information and sharing because of an alternative agenda, mostly one involving money. We should not blame the people who create, we should take on some of the blame as well for our lazy or uniformed attention and dedication. 

 A form of this pseudo participation is clicktivism and slacktivism. The difference between informing the masses and actually implementing  change is in the course of action. How many times have you gotten a suggestion or a request from a friend to support a cause which will save a child in Africa, find a cure for breast cancer, or just save the worldWe've been conditioned to do most of our living activities online and making a difference in the world has become one of them. While we might never have the urge or the need to physically go to a rally, a protest, knock on doors and promote a cause or collect signatures we feel like Mother Theresa when we like a post that will donate money to a cause for every click, or when we sign an online petition

I am all for spreading the word and getting an important message to as many people as possible so that we are thoroughly informed. However I think that we need to do a background check on all these causes if we plan on supporting them even just by informing the public and not taking the action. If we don't we will have another Kony scam,we might support something we don't fully believe in just by not knowing the whole truth, or we might give money to a fraud charity. I feel as if people will participate in these activities not solely because it will make them feel like they are contributing but also because there is a lot of pressure knowing that you are one of the few people on Facebook not supporting the latest cause. Would you be pressured to support a cause just so other people could see you as a good person?


1 comment:

  1. I think this topic is extremely interesting and there is much validity to the idea of - are we really helping/ doing our part by just clicking "we support"? To answer the question you posed at the end though, there is always a little pressure to support a cause that you know many others are supporting, however, being the person that I am (a pretty stubborn one), I would only support a cause that I either strongly believed in or felt there was no downside in supporting. What I mean by that is, often, people ask me to "like" their page. There is no doubt that this is a form of support, maybe not a monetary form (yet), but it shows up on my "likes" so technically, it does contribute to my online self presentation. In reference to charitable causes, though, it is extremely important to ensure that what one is supporting is legitimate and reliable. We need to check our sources, and this is a perfect example of when it is important to do as a result of the potential consequences. No one wants their money going into the pockets of frauds.

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