This past week in class we have hit hard on the slacktivism of social media, and discussing if and when it is appropriate. Many of the Facebook posts have focused on memes showing what slacktivism is and how it is actually ineffective for the most part. My views on slacktivism keep going back and forth between totally useless to best thing ever. On one side I can see how people think that it is pointless and that it really just encourages lazy people to change statuses and act like they are changing the world. I believe this view is true when there are local issues at hand that you can have an impact on personally. But as we spoke of in class what about the times when the job or issue at hand requires government intervention and as a single individual we can’t do anything except speak out on social media to try and rile up enough people to force our government to get involved. The best quote I read this week came from my Facebook post and it said that Slacktivism should be the beginning of activism. I believe that those who regularly engage in slacktivism will eventually catch on that they could be doing so much more for people than trying to rely on others to get the job done when they could just do it themselves. I believe that more and more people are starting to catch on to this after years of little change and numerous Facebook posts, likes, and shares. This past year has been big on the change of slacktivism to actual real life activism, with many new marches and boycotts taking place and effecting change for the first time in decades. My other thoughts on slacktivism is that what can it hurt? It may spur someone into action that can do so much more than you would ever be able to do if you had never made that post. We never know how we may affect someone else’s life just by our small actions. After reasoning through this again and with my thoughts on paper my final conclusion is that social media posts should be part of any activist movement but you should try to get more involved if at all possible, but if you stick to just social media realize that you may or may not be helping your cause because if you don’t feel compelled enough to do it then why should someone else?

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