In defense of 'slactivism'

                Well this week has been pretty well educating. I went from having a pretty negative perspective on a lot of social media platforms and ideas, to having a more positive understanding view on them. Our discussions in class are captivating, as we can all address each other’s concerns and doubts. Within a group of so many people actively studying the psychology behind social media, many different perspectives are gathered between us all to contribute towards an unbiased perspective. And it is exactly this environment that has caused me to change my entire attitude towards social media and the use of technology today. I no longer look at it with a condescending view or try to deny having used facebook recently, because now I am more knowledgeable in WHEN and HOW I use it, so it is beneficial instead of time-wasting.

                This is how I often feel when using social media platforms:

                Some of the biggest problems associated with internet and social media use are: Cyber-bullying, pornography, slacktivism, time-wasting, addiction, video-game violence, and other crime. ^_~ We have been able to study these problems during class, and share multiple articles and sources to support our research, which led me to become pretty well negative about it all. Honestly, I didn’t really want a lot to do with technology after that.

                But then, we began to spend a lot of time talking about altruism and slacktivism. While altruism is described as the unselfish devotion to the welfare of others, it is used in social media to describe how social network users readily share information that might be useful to other users. After touching on altruism, we began studying slacktivism, which (according to Wikipedia) is “usually considered a pejorative term that describes ‘feel-good’ measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it take satisfaction from the feeling they have contributed.” Slacktivism is typically associated with signing internet petitions, reposting information for charity organizations, or joining supportive groups by just clicking ‘like’ on a page. These actions are generally viewed as wasted energy, given that they all require minimal energy to begin with because they almost never gain the results expected by its critics.

                I believe slacktivism is viewed from the wrong perspective. If we view it as something that its not, then of course we are going to get a bad impression of it! One must understand that slacktivism is not a means through which the founders would expect true change to occur. I believe the true purpose of slacktivism is to spread the word, share the idea, make it known so that those with the resources necessary might be able to find out about it and then react. So slacktivism, in itself, is beneficial when viewed as solely the medium through which information is relayed.

                Still not convinced? Take a gander here: In defense of #BringBackOurGirls and ‘slacktivism’