An enlightening look at the power, and the lack thereof, of social media technology in The New Yorker entitled, “Small Change: Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”. As per usual, Gladwell mixes in some provocative nuggets about the human condition:
This is in many ways a wonderful thing. There is strength in weak ties, as the sociologist Mark Granovetter has observed. Our acquaintances—not our friends—are our greatest source of new ideas and information. The Internet lets us exploit the power of these kinds of distant connections with marvellous efficiency. It’s terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, seamlessly matching up buyers and sellers, and the logistical functions of the dating world. But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism.
—————-How did the [bone-marrow registration-related Help Sameer] campaign get so many people to sign up? By not asking too much of them. That’s the only way you can get someone you don’t really know to do something on your behalf. You can get thousands of people to sign up for a donor registry, because doing so is pretty easy. You have to send in a cheek swab and—in the highly unlikely event that your bone marrow is a good match for someone in need—spend a few hours at the hospital. Donating bone marrow isn’t a trivial matter. But it doesn’t involve financial or personal risk; it doesn’t mean spending a summer being chased by armed men in pickup trucks. It doesn’t require that you confront socially entrenched norms and practices. In fact, it’s the kind of commitment that will bring only social acknowledgment and praise.
The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960.
—————-Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice. We are a long way from the lunch counters of Greensboro.
—————-…weak-tie connections… give us access to information over the strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact. The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo. If you are of the opinion that all the world needs is a little buffing around the edges, this should not trouble you. But if you think that there are still lunch counters out there that need integrating it ought to give you pause.
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3 responses to “Malcolm Gladwell on the Limits of Social Media”
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I agree with his analysis on weak ties – strong ties, but so many people don't 'get' Twitter – or what is has become.
Specifically – Twitter is just another 'content syndication platform' – period. For ex. when you publish an article on the Mockingbird Blog – it is simultaneously 'tweeted' – or posted on twitter w/a link to the article/post – that's in a nutshell 'syndication'. There are some really compelling technical benefits to this kind of content syndication – most notably (IMHO) the ability to have some compelling analytical info on clicks, shares, etc… (DATA!) as well as a smaller footprint. Since Twitter Tweets are 160 charcaters only and since emdedded links are shortened – it means for mobile devices, iPads, etc… that the amount of data needed to access content is smaller.
I know I'm getting overly technical here, but for exmple I have 500 Blogs subscribed in my Google Reader account, but no mobile reader app can handle all those feeds. FLIPBOARD – an AMAZING app on the iPAD takes twitter tweets (which are TINY) and presnts images and text like a glossy mag. They essentially take curated lists of Twitter accounts – for ex. if all my 500 Blogs I read were 1 Big Twitter list – then I could read them all in a cool and easy way on my iPad/iPhone, Whatever…
Conent Syndication Platform – also a way to 'discover' new things/information. It's like a living newspaper – not a social transforative vehicle as I see it. This content sydication platform displaced the early days of people popping off about whatever they feel. Something like more than 80% of twitter tweets now have embedded web links (URLS) – vs. just random texts from people talking about what they had for dinner – which all points to this content syndication vehicle vs. social network vehicle.
Anyway – I agree with Gladwell's assessment – but think the connection is more to Facebook as weak-tie connections (eg my random HS friends I'd only see @ reunions if not for Facebook) vs. Twitter (which really is not a social network)
And Twitter can be used to send short messages directly to cell phones, too – no web needed. It's the ultimate "push" mobile technology, good for letting groups of people know quickly what you'd like them to know. Short reminders about events, or status updates, changes of agenda, location, etc.
You can do lots of interesting things with Twitter, in fact. I'm thinking it's probably going to change the way news is gathered and reported, too, in many ways. People at events will be able to send updates about what's happening on the instant – and media outlets will be watching these happen. Worldwide instantaneous coverage of – well, anything you're interested in. Images are coming, too….
You missed the best line in the whole article: "A networked, weak-tie world is good at things like helping Wall Streeters get phones back from teen-age girls. Viva la revolución."
What Gladwell has really exposed is how we live in a generation of Americans eager to change things but with no clue what to change. The "evangelists of social media" Gladwell attacks don't seem to be able to imagine that any truly systemic change is necessary. The only problems we need to solve are the ones we already believe are problems.
Not that he actually offers up any examples of systemic changes needing to be made…