Summary Of Small Change By Malcolm Gladwell

Changes are made spontaneously today, either due to creativity or innovations. However, do all changes make a benefit for the people in the community? That is where Malcolm Gladwell gives the reader a detailed understanding of how the change in the usage of social media flawed the society in a crucial way. Malcolm Gladwell writes an essay called Small Change, where he compares the activism in the segregation time period and the current time period. The social media has made us, humans, connect with each other less and less. Indeed, people “connect” and “bond” through the social media, but there are no stronger ties than connecting through direct contact with another person or people. However, behind Gladwell’s attitude towards social media,

These kinds of memes are what Gladwell promotes in today’s high-tech society, and are what he refers to as strong ties. Gladwell starts his disagreement with social media by stating, “…Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice” (176). Since there are no physical contact in social media, people tend to initiate something that they cannot handle in reality. These types of statements that people make in the social media ridicules Gladwell’s belief in the activism. The Internet is an enormous system that is open to whomever has access to it. Thus, the spread or success of a meme is highly likely. However, in real life situations, such as the protest in Greensboro, North Carolina that Gladwell mentions, it is the hierarchical system that spread the meme throughout the society. Gladwell’s anti-social-media mind gives many reasons why the traditional activism has more impact than that of the social media. One of these reasons he gives are the hierarchical system that the traditional activism possesses; he states that “Facebook and the like are tools for building network, which are the opposite, in structure and character, of hierarchies” (177). Therefore, the ties or connections that are made through social media are weaker than that of in person. This is the reason behind how the four young black students got to gather hundreds and thousands of people to join their peaceful lunch table protest. Unlike networks made in social media and the Internet, the traditional activism promotes “…a centralized leadership structures and clear lines of authority…” (Gladwell 177). The fact that there is a single organization that leads the group gives the meme or idea more power to spread its wings. Also, the concept of leadership in