Changing Tides in a Social Sea

There is not doubt about it: online social networking has changed the way Americans communicate.  It has even changed the content of our communications.  But has it fundamentally changed how the next generation sees the world?  And more importantly, can it change the worldviews of young people in repressive societies?

People have pointed out the powerful effects of social media on current revolutions: protests organized on facebook and twitter, warnings and plans communicated in real time, information about initiatives disseminated on the web.  The instant, all-reaching nature of the Internet clearly makes it a useful tool, but it seems to become more than that.  Under a veil of silence and fear, people living under totalitarian regimes seldom find the audacity to believe something better could come to their nation, let alone the chance to find and confer with like-minded people, or the support and resources to find courage and purpose.  An anonymous network -- that too-often encourages Americans to reveal the nastier aspects of themselves and pursue destructive behaviors that would not be appropriate in the "real world" -- instead provides dissenters with the opportunity to express themselves and the venue to be heard.  Here, social networking really does change one's view of the world.  The small village becomes the planet.  The personal indignation becomes the shared and manageable plight.  The suppressed secret becomes the revolution.  A thousand candles lighting fires in those that bothered to imagine or dared to believe, drawing light and fuel from the brilliance in each other and the potential in the whole.

Social networking is not the answer to everything.  It provides only a tool; an opportunity, the desire must be there.  But when utilized, for school bullying, free-marketing, or moving against an oppressive regime, the potential inherent in online communication, is really the ability to release the potential within ourselves.