It is quite obvious that within recent years technology has entrapped Americans in a thick, sticky web of social media networks, pop-culture styled news sites, and opinionated blogs. This section of technological advances adversely influences the American culture by poisoning the most private sectors of citizens daily lives. Most social media networkers blindly believe that this new trend of technology only enhances their lives through its instant-satisfactory style and the ability to create interpersonal relationships with a multitude of people. But for those who can see through the cracks in the media’s façade, it is obvious that this evolving technology can have devastating effects. Technology not only has the power to critically alter mental
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The theory birds of a feather flock together could not hold more true for online social media networks and other interactive sites. With raging debates and hashtag wars like #BlackLivesMatter Vs. #AllLivesMatter, social media websites have turned into battlefields where you can simply “unfriend” your opponents if the fight gets too heated. Creating technological platforms that encourages like-minded people to connect through blogs, groups, and forums fosters a safe haven for extremist ideas to multiple. In Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld’s essay “The Influencing Machines”, they elucidate on how the internet has the potential to stimulate the creation of so-called “virtually impermeable echo chambers" were its members believe their word is fact and reject all others. Gladstone and Neufeld explicates that “The echo chambers give rise to cybercascades: when a “fact” sent by one person spreads in a geometric progression to others until millions of people around the world potentially believe it. Cut off from dissenters, the chambers fill with an unjustified sense of certainty.” (332) The point here is that it is incredible simple to spread a radicalized idea when technology allows people create a personal bubbles that exile contradicting opinions. These groups have become increasingly problematic as the popularity of fanatic self-righteous media forums and posts skyrockets. It is emphasize by Gladstone and Neufeld that …show more content…
But this ideology could not be further from the truth. The advocacy of the social change through their personal voice alone may empower few, but actually going out and fighting for the results they hope for has been, and always will be, more effective. Although the activists have “good intentions”, it is near impossible to bring about positive social transformations by complaining to online friends, most that share the same opinions in extremist situation, instead of public demonstrations. In Malcolm Gladwell’s essay “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, he began by comparing the heroic story of the Greensboro Four, a group of protestors fighting for equal rights in the 60’s, to what is known as the “Twitter Revolution”. In the striking situation of the Greensboro’s Four, four young college students preformed a sit-in protest at a local diner that refused to serve blacks at its counter. Despite disgusting discriminatory remarks, having firecrackers and food thrown at them, and an appearance from the Ku Klux Klan, the Greensboro Four not only stood their ground, but inspired many other civil-rights organizations. Unlike the story of the Greensboro Four, the Twitter Revolution was all online and not nearly as
The theory birds of a feather flock together could not hold more true for online social media networks and other interactive sites. With raging debates and hashtag wars like #BlackLivesMatter Vs. #AllLivesMatter, social media websites have turned into battlefields where you can simply “unfriend” your opponents if the fight gets too heated. Creating technological platforms that encourages like-minded people to connect through blogs, groups, and forums fosters a safe haven for extremist ideas to multiple. In Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld’s essay “The Influencing Machines”, they elucidate on how the internet has the potential to stimulate the creation of so-called “virtually impermeable echo chambers" were its members believe their word is fact and reject all others. Gladstone and Neufeld explicates that “The echo chambers give rise to cybercascades: when a “fact” sent by one person spreads in a geometric progression to others until millions of people around the world potentially believe it. Cut off from dissenters, the chambers fill with an unjustified sense of certainty.” (332) The point here is that it is incredible simple to spread a radicalized idea when technology allows people create a personal bubbles that exile contradicting opinions. These groups have become increasingly problematic as the popularity of fanatic self-righteous media forums and posts skyrockets. It is emphasize by Gladstone and Neufeld that …show more content…
But this ideology could not be further from the truth. The advocacy of the social change through their personal voice alone may empower few, but actually going out and fighting for the results they hope for has been, and always will be, more effective. Although the activists have “good intentions”, it is near impossible to bring about positive social transformations by complaining to online friends, most that share the same opinions in extremist situation, instead of public demonstrations. In Malcolm Gladwell’s essay “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, he began by comparing the heroic story of the Greensboro Four, a group of protestors fighting for equal rights in the 60’s, to what is known as the “Twitter Revolution”. In the striking situation of the Greensboro’s Four, four young college students preformed a sit-in protest at a local diner that refused to serve blacks at its counter. Despite disgusting discriminatory remarks, having firecrackers and food thrown at them, and an appearance from the Ku Klux Klan, the Greensboro Four not only stood their ground, but inspired many other civil-rights organizations. Unlike the story of the Greensboro Four, the Twitter Revolution was all online and not nearly as