dear malcolm gladwell

Dear Malcolm Gladwell,

I am very sure that you are aware by now about the revolution that took place in Egypt? Most of it was feed by social networking.. I am sure that you are also aware that “Governments have always worried about the flow and control of information, and the current period is not the first to be strongly affected by dramatic changes in information technology”. This is why the Great Firewall exists in China.

You sited examples from the 1960s quite often in your piece and how these protests are different then what is going on today with the digital revolution. Yes they are different, social media is a tool that is designed keep us connected. With these connections we can tell our peers how we feel about certain issues. It’s all online you might say. But being online is what today’s world is all about. We want to get things done faster and more efficiently. So we use digital media to spread the message.

My sophmore year of high school I was on a traveling volleyball team that mostly consisted of girls of color. I and the two or three other white players were confused when one day all the girls came to practice talking about how they had been protesting down at city hall all day for the migrant farm workers. When we asked them what they were talking about and how they got their information they simply said “myspace”. Times had been posted of where to protest and for the four days it went on word spread so fast via digital media. The local newspaper The Fresno Bee was behind on the news most days. However myspace kept me and my teammates up to date. So we knew that everyone was safe.

You might say that my generation does not know how to protest. I disagree! If I were to create an event on facebook inviting everyone of my friends in any city they happened to be in at the time to protest something. I could guarantee that about half of them would do that. Now maybe your going to ask well how many friends do you have 1,000? I would respond with no about 400 and I constantly go thru deleting people I don’t know as well as I think should be my friends on facebook. Next your going to say you don’t know that many people.. ahh But I went to two different high schools with about 700 students each and guaranteed mostly everyone knew who I was at SJM because I was extremely involved! And at the local public school I graduated from a lot of people knew me as well because I tend to make my opinions known and I was the new girl..Needless to say, I’ve got friends who will jump behind me; and then their friends will follow and their friends friends..

So Malcolm if you want a revolution 1960’s style; we could give you one. Guaranteed we’ll have more people their too just because we have the capability to network socially better before then any other generation.