Does social media activism have any impact on real issues? (Put your actions where your mouth is)

Social media activism is an example of the classic middle class response to societal challenges. Rather than come out to physically make an impact; we only go as far as being loud by typing keys and waiting for others to get their hands dirty. Social media activism on its own can not have significant impact in society; it should be accompanied by putting our actions where our mouths are. The young generation sees it as ‘cool’ or hip to begin movements on social media and get everyone else to join in their fight. What we however forget is that it has to be accompanied by actions. The Egyptian revolution has been numerously erroneously mentioned as a success story of social media activism. The Egyptian youth tweeted and posted updates on Facebook as they stood at Tahrir Square. They didn’t tweet ‘hash tags’ from the comfort of their homes or offices as we are doing in the ‘bring back our girls’ campaign. There are many events on social media that to a great extent, even a trending activism campaign will be over shadowed by a simple tweet about a newsworthy event. A Facebook friend made a hilarious comment about social media activism that it got me taking this side of the debate; social media activism has limited impact on an issue. He posted: “A woman punched her brother-in-law and the world forgot about missing school girls.” His comment totally reflects the influence of social media on events. There are some followers that capitalise their interests that even the information that seems to matter is over shadowed. For a few days, the #BringBackOurGirls was the order of the day but the moment the video of hip hop mogul and husband to superstar Beyonce, Jay Z, and his in-law, Solange’s fight surfaced, they took over. Has anyone even come out to think about the possibility that the video going viral could be a tool used to market Solange’s music? A hash tag can only trend for so long, right? Social media followers care more about trending events than the importance or influence of activism. Actually some followers on Twitter or Facebook join activism campaigns to get more followers thus they will retweet or follow an activism campaign. Social media activism is a new strategy in which topical issues have been popularised by the masses and to some extent; it has not influenced or impacted change especially if it’s a political matter because the different social media followers have different interests and motives. Social media has become a ‘double-edged sword’ because it can be used to manipulate matters depending on who benefits and it’s so sad that people fail to read between the lines. I can’t refute that social media has become a platform through which people express divergent views about a specific matter and it has played the role of being a source of information but given the rate at which events are overshadowed every minute that passes, I don’t think social media activism has influenced many campaigns for change.