Con: Facebook Activism Doesn’t Match the Real Thing

Written by Mary on February 21, 2008 – 11:20 pm -

The following comment is by Mike Eber, a student at the University of Michigan in the USA. He tried to organize a march on campus using Facebook. The event’s Facebook page listed 230 confirmed attendees, with about 350 more saying they would “maybe” attend. However, only 20 people actually showed up for the march. Here he argues that the Internet is still not a replacement for offline contact and organizing:

Interactive social networking makes self-expression easy, to the point that the ease itself is its flaw…. This is exactly what plagues Facebook communication. Can sending an e-mail or joining a Facebook group equal the sincerity of using valuable time to participate in a demonstration? Probably not. But consider it in more personal terms. How does writing “happy birthday” on a friend’s Facebook wall, for example, compare to a customary phone call?

Although Internet organization might be the grassroots forum of the future, the behavior of the Facebook generation has not caught up with our pre-Internet expectations of human behavior…. For this to change, we must put our money where our mouse is.

Source: The Michigan Daily


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Posted in Americas, Pros & Cons, Social Networks |

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