Social Media- A Tool?

The facts presented on this video are interesting, but take a few moments to think about the following concepts.

“73% of wired American teens” now use social media, and “47% of online adults use social networking sites (Lenhart, 2010)."

In Here Comes Everybody Clay Shirky argues that “society is not just the product of its individual members; it is also the product of its constituent groups,” and social media provides the tools for people to organize in groups. It allows people to organize without using the model of traditional hierarchy, and gives users and members the freedom to make what they want of social tools (Shirky, 2008).

Furthermore, technology and communication tools remove obstacles such as locality of information and barriers to group reaction (Shirky, 2008).

Keeping these concepts in mind, how we can use these advancements in technology and social media to affect change? How can we use the community of HOH to spread awareness about hunger in the U.S.? How can we inspire other teens to initiate strategies to end hunger in their local area?

Sources
Lenhart, A., Purcell, K., Smith, A., & Zickuhr, K. (2010). Social media & mobile internet use among teens and young adults. Pew Internet: Pew Internet and American Life Project, Retrieved from http://web.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2010/PIP_Social_Media_and_Young_Adults
_Report_Final_with_toplines.pdf

Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody, the Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin Pr.