Do you think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change?

According to Malcom Gladwell, a well-known author in the area of social media, social media are built around weak ties and real social change can never come from loose networks of people that do not know each other.

Personally, I don’t agree with Mr. Gladwell, anything (including social media) has potential whether it is good or bad that is something to be determined. Nowadays, social media (such as Skype and even Facebook) allows us to communicate with people all around the world. An example of social media contributing to a big change in society also relates to the disaster in Japan. Linkin Park is known across the world and many people are ridiculously huge fans so they will go to great lengths to follow they do, regarding the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the band have come up with a novel way to raise funds for relief efforts. Their latest project, on fundraising site, give2gether.com, is a fan challenge in which the first 500 people to raise $500 or more will get a pair of tickets to a secret Los Angeles show that's scheduled to take place on August 31. At press time, the Give2gether site had 1,155 supporters who had raised $47,635, with the most generous U.S. fan donating $7,000 to the cause. That is incredible, and all just because of someone's social media influence.

Everything has its pros and cons and social media is not an exception. A few examples of this bad potential it is that it decreases personal face-to-face contact. You hear about people in offices and how they no longer get up from their desks anymore to deliver a message, all you have to do now is send it through e-mail or other social media source because it is so much quicker. I realize that the younger generation rather text or use social media to talk to somebody. I have a 16 year-old cousin and he does not even like to call people, she would just choose to Facebook them or text.

In conclusion, I think that it isn’t about the good or bad potential to bring about social change,it was whether there was the potential to bring about real social change. My belief is that with all the positive and negative influences, it has brought on some sort of social change.