Do Millennials Believe in Individualism or Collective Action?

Sally Kohn, a writer and moving force behind the Movement Vision Lab for the Center for Community Change, wrote an editorial published in the Christian Science Monitor on what she sees as the limitations of Millennial activism: individual action over collective action.

She writes that Millennials are idealistic and passionate about causes; however, their tendency towards what she calls “hyperindividualism” that’s magnified by social media will impede social change movements. She writes about social media:

“This is great for signing a petition to Congress or donating to a cause. But the real challenges in our society – the growing gap between rich and poor, the intransigence of racism and discrimination, the abuses from Iraq to Burma (Myanmar) – won’t politely go away with a few clicks of a mouse. Or even a million.”

I understand the point, and have certainly always believed that online and on-land activism are symbiotic and necessary for social change efforts to be successful. However, I think Sally is underestimating the power of social media to lead to social change. She mentions that social change movements have always required collective action going back to the American Revolution, and this is absolutely true, but I don’t see that social media and collective action are mutually exclusive. Millennials can work individually online, but they don’t have to — they have conversations on Facebook and blogs, they organize get-togethers using Meetup.com, and they mobilize for protest marches using Twitter.

Sally dismisses too easily Millennial activism as individual data points of clicks and pings while missing a broad tapestry of engagement, exploration, and action that is changing the world.