The release of Social Citizens BETA today is very exciting for what it isn’t – and what it is. Late last year, Kari Dunn and Ben Binswanger of The Case Foundation [1] asked me to write a paper for the Foundation about the emergence of Millennials, 15-29 year olds, as activists. They wanted to know more about how these young people are using all of their widgets and gadgets for causes.
And that’s when we talked about what the paper isn’t.
We decided to go beyond a simply litany of the ways that young people are using blogs, social networks, and videos to share information about their favorite causes. We wanted to go a step further and ask harder “so what” questions. What does it mean to Millennials to have the ability to become an advocate for their cause instantly, broadly, inexpensively, and what does their ability to do so mean for the rest of us?
The Foundation provided me with an opportunity to cast a wide net across the real of Millennial activism; from Facebook [2] to the Red Campaign [3], from the presidential campaign trail to the human devastation in Darfur [4], from Gossip Girls [5] to Invisible Children [6], a documentary about the difficult lives of the children of Uganda. I followed the trail of email, blogs, YouTube videos, websites, donations, Tweets, and IMs around the country and even across the globe. I interviewed over thirty people, read many articles, papers, books, and websites, and examined the data on who is doing what for causes. And what I found was astounding for its scope, scale, and idealistic intentions.
Marnie Webb, a key informant in the paper, asked, “What, if anything, does all of the clicking, blogging, and “friending” add up to in the end?” And my answer is, “Far more than I imagined, far greater than I had hoped.”
Millennials are doing more than pinging and poking and sharing information about causes. They are radically altering the very notion of what it means to be an active citizen in the process, and that’s why we’re calling them Social Citizens. They are viewing their responsibility to their larger community solely through a cause lens. They are clicking, buying, running, hammering, petitioning, and sharing information with their friends.
And, you, my careful reader, have noticed that there is a “beta” on the end of Social Citizens in the title of the paper. This is to remind that this field of youth activism is changing at breakneck pace. American humorist James Thurber said, “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” And certainly, in this case, we know that there are lots and lots of questions without answers yet — and this is fantastic news to folks like me and my colleagues at the Case Foundation who like having conversations with other people who are interested in increasing the number of people who are actively engaged in trying to improve our world.
However, as encouraging as this news is, their activities raise serious questions. Is it possible to envision a very large generation of citizens who lead their lives at a great distance from government, even lives infused with causes, volunteering and a hopeful outlook about the world. Can government really be irrelevant to their lives, and, if so, is this a good thing for society? Is it important that young people are engaged in public policy advocacy? Is our tendency to connect only with like-minded people using our on line and on land social networks a good thing for activism or a critical bottleneck to the effective scaling for causes? Are social change institutions critical to the future of Social Citizens and their causes or are they becoming old-century anachronisms of top-down hierarchies that can’t survive much longer?
So, what do you think? I hope you’ll read and enjoy Social Citizens BETA, and I’m looking forward to our upcoming conversation and your ideas, thoughts, comments, and questions about Social Citizens.
Comments
As a young person, I would say that it is extremely important to get young people involved in public policy and activism. Activism is essentially about protecting your rights and your livelihood. As it is, quite a number of young people are tuned out of activism because
a) They are not aware of how the can be involved (with some of them feeling they are insignificant)
b) They haven’t seen the personal connection between activism and their lives
c) Their efforts are maligned by others who think it’s all just a fad
(also, is there an easier way to download the paper?)
Oh, also, in regards to:
<i>Is our tendency to connect only with like-minded people using our on line and on land social networks a good thing for activism or a critical bottleneck to the effective scaling for causes?</i>
It can be a bad thing if you only stay to one circle. However, most people have various circles of friends and networks, and not all of them encompass each other. It would be good to have those people that are a member of very diverse social circles involved in activism, as they can pass the information on to all sorts of different people.
Hi, Tiara, thanks for your thoughtful comments! It’s a really interesting question about whether it’s a good thing that people connect with link minded folks in their social circles or a bad thing. I suppose it’s a good thing if you want news about what’s happening in your friends lives, but ultimately, for social change efforts, we need to broader our circles. What do you think?
PS We’re working on a slimmer version of the paper that will be easier to download and email – thanks for the suggestion!
I recently attended a media event where Heather Smith, Executive Director of Rock the Vote, spoke about these same young people. She has statistics which show they are more engaged in the political process than ever before. She also claimed they are changing the face of politics due to their passion and ability to network and take action. I don’t know if young people view government as irrelevant as you say, but I don’t believe they are ignoring government.