400 Words

Activism has changed drastically as generations have gone and our way of life has become more electronic. Some would say there is a difference between “real” activism and activism. What is considered to be real activism is the question. Malcolm Gladwell in the essay “Small Change” introduced new perspectives of activism and caused his readers to process the true meaning of activism differently. Gladwell speaks a lot about how activism has been taken over by the internet and it is less of in personal events and more of just a post on social media. He doesn’t believe that this should be considered activism because it doesn’t have the same impact or meaning. Anyone could click a button but not anyone can attend a sit-in and truly make a difference. Many previous activism events became so large because of in-person connections, and word of mouth. By the people, you know speaking to you about something they are passionate about and causing you to support them on this activist journey. Sam Anderson in “The Defense of Distraction” focuses on how attention has changed over decades and become progressively worse. He believes that this attention is distracting the human mind. The brain is beginning to have a difficult time doing brain functions we could have done at ease before. Such as difficulty in learning or remembering actions you have made. Could these shifts in our brain functions play a part in the change in activism? Humans could be less willing to learn these topics that need help or make a change because they are too absorbed with something else. Our attention to the important things is being blinded by all of the other stuff going on in our lives. Such as social media for instance and the internet. We are so preoccupied with our devices that we don’t see real-world issues. We just see them on a screen and our way of reacting is just liking, reposting, or commenting but is that making a difference? I agree with Gladwell when he speaks on what is considered activism. I don’t think that these lazy people just home twiddling their fingers is activism. The people that are out in the world at protests, sit-ins, and making a real change are activists. These in-person events are activism, not the posts we all see on the internet. The definition of activism is constantly changing and the development of devices and the internet is strongly impacting this shift in activism.

800 Words

Activism has changed drastically as generations have gone and our way of life has become more electronic. Some would say there is a difference between “real” activism and activism. What is considered to be real activism is the question. Malcolm Gladwell in the essay “Small Change” introduced new perspectives of activism and caused his readers to process the true meaning of activism differently. Gladwell speaks a lot about how activism has been taken over by the internet and it is less of in personal events and more of just a post on social media. He doesn’t believe that this should be considered activism because it doesn’t have the same impact or meaning. Anyone could click a button but not anyone can attend a sit-in and truly make a difference. Many previous activism events became so large because of in-person connections, and word of mouth. By the people, you know speaking to you about something they are passionate about and causing you to support them on this activist journey. Sam Anderson in “The Defense of Distraction” focuses on how attention has changed over decades and become progressively worse. He believes that this attention is distracting the human mind. The brain is beginning to have a difficult time doing brain functions we could have done at ease before. Such as difficulty in learning or remembering actions you have made. Could these shifts in our brain functions play a part in the change in activism? Humans could be less willing to learn these topics that need help or make a change because they are too absorbed with something else. Our attention to the important things is being blinded by all of the other stuff going on in our lives. Such as social media for instance and the internet. We are so preoccupied with our devices that we don’t see real-world issues. We just see them on a screen and our way of reacting is just liking, reposting, or commenting but is that making a difference? I agree with Gladwell when he speaks on what is considered activism. I don’t think that these lazy people just home twiddling their fingers is activism. The people that are out in the world at protests, sit-ins, and making a real change are activists. These in-person events are activism, not the posts we all see on the internet. The definition of activism is constantly changing and the development of devices and the internet is strongly impacting this shift in activism.

Devices have caused a decrease in people’s motivation which has caused an obvious shift in activism. People are less motivated to go out of their way to make a change and attend in-person activism events. Since social media has become such a large part of our lives it has caused more people to be involved in activism but in a different way. “Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires.”(Gladwell 8) Gladwell has strong feelings about what activism is to the point that he refers to high-risk activism and activism. This decreased motivation has caused high-risk activism to diminish and occurs much less often than in the past. The motivation to attend events and fight for causes is almost unheard of. Activism in this day and age is more of my scrolling through social media and supporting causes. This lack of attention and wanting to get involved in movements is caused by a bigger issue. For instance, Anderson talks a lot about this lack of attention and states, “Many of our attention problems are symptoms of larger existential issues: motivation, happiness, neurochemistry. And anytime your work gets a little bit too hard or a little bit too boring, you allow it to catch on to something that’s more interesting to you.”(Anderson 9) Such as our devices and social media; which are constantly drawing us away from larger commitments. It all comes back to this idea of motivation though. We are less interested in high-risk activism because we are preoccupied with our devices because we have this attachment to them. This attachment has caused our motivation levels to decrease and we feel no need to get out there and risk anything for what we believe in. I can’t say that I have ever taken part in a high-risk activism event, but I have also grown up in a generation filled with technology. I have signed petitions and supported causes through social media but that is all. I would also not consider myself an activist because of these things. I didn’t hold a large role or make a large impact, I was just a supporter. I couldn’t tell you why I never took part in activism, but I can agree that a lack of motivation probably played a part. I don’t feel the need to get out there and make a change if I can just repost and hope someone else does it for me. Devices are causing younger generations to think this way, and I can admit that this is bad. We are so dependent on this way of life that we feel no need to take part in real-world issues and make a real difference all because of a lack of motivation.

Peer Reviewed

Activism has changed drastically as generations have gone and our way of life has become more electronic. Some would say there is a difference between “real” activism and activism. What is considered to be real activism is the question. Malcolm Gladwell in the essay “Small Change” introduced new perspectives of activism and caused his readers to process the true meaning of activism differently. Gladwell speaks a lot about how activism has been taken over by the internet and it is less of in personal events and more of just a post on social media. He doesn’t believe that this should be considered activism because it doesn’t have the same impact or meaning. Anyone could click a button but not anyone can attend a sit-in and truly make a difference. Many previous activism events became so large because of in-person connections, and word of mouth. By the people, you know speaking to you about something they are passionate about and causing you to support them on this activist journey. Sam Anderson in “The Defense of Distraction” focuses on how attention has changed over decades and become progressively worse. He believes that this attention is distracting the human mind. The brain is beginning to have a difficult time doing brain functions we could have done at ease before. Such as difficulty in learning or remembering actions you have made. Could these shifts in our brain functions play a part in the change in activism? Humans could be less willing to learn these topics that need help or make a change because they are too absorbed with something else. Our attention to the important things is being blinded by all of the other stuff going on in our lives. Such as social media for instance and the internet. We are so preoccupied with our devices that we don’t see real-world issues. We just see them on a screen and our way of reacting is just liking, reposting, or commenting but is that making a difference? I agree with Gladwell when he speaks on what is considered activism. I don’t think that these lazy people just home twiddling their fingers is activism. The people that are out in the world at protests, sit-ins, and making a real change are activists. These in-person events are activism, not the posts we all see on the internet. The definition of activism is constantly changing and the development of devices and the internet is strongly impacting this shift in activism.

Devices have caused a decrease in people’s motivation which has caused an obvious shift in activism. People are less motivated to go out of their way to make a change and attend in-person activism events. Since social media has become such a large part of our lives it has caused more people to be involved in activism but in a different way. “Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires.”(Gladwell 8) Gladwell has strong feelings about what activism is to the point that he refers to high-risk activism and activism. This decreased motivation has caused high-risk activism to diminish and occurs much less often than in the past. The motivation to attend events and fight for causes is almost unheard of. Activism in this day and age is more of my scrolling through social media and supporting causes. This lack of attention and wanting to get involved in movements is caused by a bigger issue. For instance, Anderson talks a lot about this lack of attention and states, “Many of our attention problems are symptoms of larger existential issues: motivation, happiness, neurochemistry. And anytime your work gets a little bit too hard or a little bit too boring, you allow it to catch on to something that’s more interesting to you.”(Anderson 9) Such as our devices and social media; which are constantly drawing us away from larger commitments. It all comes back to this idea of motivation though. We are less interested in high-risk activism because we are preoccupied with our devices because we are attached to them. This attachment has caused our motivation levels to decrease and we feel no need to get out there and risk anything for what we believe in. I can’t say that I have ever taken part in a high-risk activism event, but I have also grown up in a generation filled with technology. I have signed petitions and supported causes through social media but that is all. I would also not consider myself an activist because of these things. I didn’t hold a large role or make a large impact, I was just a supporter. I couldn’t tell you why I never took part in activism, but I can agree that a lack of motivation probably played a part. I don’t feel the need to get out there and make a change if I can just repost and hope someone else does it for me. Devices are causing younger generations to think this way, and I can admit that this is bad. We are so dependent on this way of life that we feel no need to take part in real-world issues and make a real difference all because of a lack of motivation.

The way people express themselves has been affected by the new distractions that we all have in our lives. Devices and social media are constantly distracting us from our emotions. Emotions are how we express ourselves and portray how we are feeling, but we don’t go about our emotions like we used to. Before we would go to someone we trusted and talk about what was going on. Whereas now we turn to our devices to distract us from how we are truly feeling. This corresponds greatly to the change we are experiencing in activism. Most of the time when people go out of their way to make a change it is because they have strong emotions towards the subject. If the way we are handling our emotions is whanging though it would make sense with why our way of activism is too. These new forms of activism or what we are considering “weak-tie” activism are effortless compared to “high-risk” activism. Just like it is effortless to turn to our devices with our emotions than go be vulnerable and talk to someone. Gladwell makes a strong point about social media and says, “It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have and impact.”(Gladwell 14) The emotion and effort people would put into activism is gone because people don’t feel the need to go out of their way to express themselves. It seems almost unnecessary that you could express some of your feelings through the click of a button, but that button isn’t having the same impact as if you put something actually at risk for how you feel. This now way of activism is making no real impact if any impact at all. We are so unwilling to go out and make a real difference because we will not let go of this obsession we have with devices, everything we did before we still do but electronically. “The wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction.”(Anderson 11) Anderson knows that we are distracted by these devices but there is no changing that. We are not letting go of these devices we are so attached to so the way we express ourselves through activism isn’t going to change. The way that I express my feelings as technology has developed had significantly changed. I bottle up how I’m feeling and don’t tell anyone, so why would I go express how I am feeling in the form of activism if I can’t even talk about general emotion. Times have changed and devices have most definitely played a large role in these changes, but there is no going back now. My devices are such a large part of my life and I believe they have permanently affected how I go about each day. I am so distracted that I will most likely never express my feelings like people used to and will never take part in “high-risk” activism.