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CW: Social Media Use

I didn't set out this week to write a blog post discussing the current events and protest, but nevertheless, the universe and my research have brought me here. Several of my classmate's blogs mentioned social media use in education and we had a very thorough class discussion regarding ethical considerations using social media in a K-12 environment. I was curious to explore other opinions and suggestions for integrating social media in my classroom so I searched through Ted Talks to see what I could find. 

I actually found two Ted Talks that discussed the pros and cons of using social media to organize protests and social movements. I watched both and found the discussion very interesting and relevant for what is going on in society today. 

The first of the two is titled, Let's design social media that drives real change and he is the person who created a Facebook group that led to the revolution in Egypt during the Arab Spring. He reflects on the ease of organizing this massive movement using social media, but then how quickly things began to unravel after the first planned protest. He discusses how social media magnifies our human impulses and how this can be dangerous as polarization is on the rise across the globe. A lot of the consequences that he discusses in the video from December 2015 are problems that we are still facing today- how to control misinformation, the online discourse can quickly devolve into an angry mob, we create our own echo chambers, and more. 

The second video analyzes multiple social movements through history- some organized using social media and others in traditional ways prior to the internet. The second video, Online social change: easy to organize, hard to win, discusses the reason that social media falls flat as a platform for organizing social change. It is too easy. We can gather hundreds and thousands in a movement quickly but we do not take the time to create an organization that can think collectively and innovate together.

The Ted Talks really caused me to reflect on how I have seen social media used during the past few weeks. It has definitely been used as a rallying cry to organize protests and coordinate marches, meeting places, volunteers, etc. It has also been used to crowd-source important information. I have seen multiple "living" documents that are being shared freely, and open to edit so you can add more information, and these documents are anti-racist resources, petitions to sign, bail funds to donate to. 

In the current social movement, social media is doing more than just quickly organizing a protest, but I don't think we have seen a consensus on how to solve the problems and move the country forward. Is it time to step back and embrace traditional ways of organizing for long-term success or is it time we start embracing social media in education so future generations are better equipped to collaborate on various social media platforms? 

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