A common societal thought is that the youths of today do not care about social and political issues. This view has been formed mainly by comparing the way the youths today and the youths of the past (in the 1970’s etc) acted towards social issues.
The kids today may try to dress the same as the activists at Woodstock celebrating freedom (hippies) and also they may feel they are as informed about social issues as the people at Martin Luther King’s march on Washington; however, they are generally not as ‘physically’ involved with issues as the youths of the past.
The majority of youth social activism is now done through social media and they are known as ‘clictivists’. Teenagers can now sit in their chair and then post their ‘social activist’ view on a medium platform, such as Facebook, Twitter etc. ‘Clicktivism’ in simple terms is when social media users ‘like’ a photo to cure a dogs cancer… which as we all know is impossible. These clicktivists generally just like a post without getting behind the cause or knowing too much about the issue and simply feel that by clicking ‘like’ they are helping.
― Leonardo da Vinci
Activist work can benefit from social media posting. Seeing as most youths are on Facebook 24/7 social/political issues can go viral easily and most people will find out about these issues such as ‘KONY 2012’ and ‘Earth Hour.’ Henrik Christensen stated that “it is not possible to determine a consistent impact of internet campaigns on real-life decisions, there is no evidence of the substitution thesis. If anything, the internet has a positive impact on offline mobilisation”. A positive aspect of online activism is that more people are aware; the issue however is whether or not these people will participate in helping these causes. A problem with the KONY campaign is that it was a hoax and people that did sponsor it or spend money to help lost their money and this may discourage them from participating in social activism online.
The Good, the Bad and the Published 