As scores of South Africans return to work, one can almost hear the buzz as thousands of electronics roar back to life. For many, one of the chief attractions of the December holiday is being able to switch off and escape the relentless series of lights and beeps that rule our lives.
But while all technology was once associated with work and demands, the personalisation of IT means people actively maintain some links while withdrawing from others. While at the beach or in the mountains, millions were uploading news and posting photos, changing statuses, and sharing content - not because technology is unavoidably intrusive, but because it has become part of who we are.
Social media fuelled the outrage building among a younger, tech-savvy generation
Lezette Engelbrecht, online features editor, ITWeb
Many argue this isn't a good thing - that the perpetual need to publicly share one's personal 'climate' is leading to a generation of self-obsessed, image-conscious narcissists. And perhaps it would, if it weren't for the fact that so many others are doing the exact same thing. Thanks to a Web environment that has remained relatively free and open, people are constantly exposed to thoughts and realities outside their particular experience. And it's this awareness, which comes as a by-product of belonging to any kind of public network, which may just help turn the endemic drive for self-expression into a force of transformation.
The potential of collective action became undeniable last year as economies crumbled, governments toppled, and the so-called “99%” made themselves heard - many via digital media. Thanks to the staggering growth in social platforms and tools, millions of individuals merged their personal influence - a campaign signature, a blog, a tweet, their physical presence - with a collective cause. These actions demonstrated the power of leveraging people's desire for self-expression to advance much broader societal issues - from unemployment to environmental injustices to healthcare.
2011 was undoubtedly the year of social activism, with the Occupy movements, Arab Spring uprisings, and several other protests against corporate greed and government oppression taking place worldwide. Time Magazine even awarded its Person of the Year accolade to 'The Protester', in recognition of the wave of civil disobedience that swept the globe - both on- and off-line. While social networking was only one platform for protest, its role in sharing information, rallying support and building solidarity was pivotal in the mobilisation of a class of citizen that had until recently prided itself in conforming to the pillars of a 'liberal' society. Social media fuelled the outrage building among a younger, tech-savvy generation for whom the promises of capitalism and so-called democratic governments had soured, leading a shift in global social consciousness that hasn't been seen in years.
Clicktivism sites like Avaaz.org showed that numbers count, gathering hundreds of thousands of digital signatures in support of campaigns ranging from enforcing bans on cluster bombs to preventing a highway from cutting through the Amazon. While some brand these Web-based forms of non-committal protest 'slacktivism', any group that manages to drum up the support of 10 million people is clearly a force to be reckoned with. Previously, there was a sense of doubt in the significance of making one's voice heard, but with the rise of Web and mobile worlds that encourage individual expression came the emergence of a dramatically more engaged society. One that was not only switched on, tuned in, and creating its own personal landscape, but using these same channels to get involved in broader, collective struggles.
Equal share
Two of the major themes that emerged during last year's protest activity were the role of youth and the importance of peer-based opinion. The growth of the search, discovery and review industry is testament to the value being placed on others' experiences and recommendations, and forms the foundation for sites like Spotify and Hunch.
A recent study on the psychology of online sharing by The New York Times Customer Insight Group and Latitude Research, showed 85% say reading others' responses helps them understand and process information and events, while 73% share information to connect with other people. This culture of connection and sharing is both a mark of the upcoming generation, and a key requirement for the kind of dialogue needed to tackle the many issues that sparked protests.
Younger generations are embracing the power of collaboration, not only in their social and consumer activities, but in those that shape their reality. Kurt Anderson notes in the Time 'Protester' article that the protestors demonstrated a remarkable degree of commonality and self-organisation. “Everywhere they are disproportionately young, middle class and educated. Almost all the protests this year began as independent affairs, without much encouragement from or endorsement by existing political parties or opposition bigwigs.”
For Rachel Botsman, co-author of 'What's mine is yours: The rise of collaborative consumption', this trend is the result of people's increasing comfort with technology, which has fostered platforms that enable the sharing, trading, lending, and renting of products, skills, and services at peer-level. With the crumbling of traditional economic and political systems, people are using these same approaches to tackle more serious concerns. Recent years have seen economic hardships, environmental dangers and political oppression break through the layer of tolerance that generally keeps the majority grumbling but passive, and once the first cries went up, it built into a call for change few in power would have believed possible.
Author and technology commentator Douglas Rushkoff states in his new book 'Program or be programmed', that the collaboration trend could give rise to an entirely new world order, as networked activity “offers us access to shared thinking. The operating principles of commerce and culture - from supply and demand to command and control - could conceivably give way to an entirely more engaged, connected, and collaborative mode of participation.“
We're moving into a time when the majority of the world population will be under 25 years of age. The backbone of society will comprise of young minds adept at an entirely new way of engaging with their world. As they head into a century of unprecedented economic, environmental and developmental challenges, this generation of individuals, which thrives on a sense of community, will have to find new ways to strengthen both their capacity for individual contribution and collective decision-making - and judging by the upheaval of 2011, that's exactly what they intend to do.
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