Technology & Innovation — October 3, 2010

The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

“Malcolm Gladwell is wrong about the poor revolutionary power of social networking, as the tweeters in Kashmir show.” The Guardian responds to The New Yorker’s critique of Twitter.

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“Malcolm Gladwell is surprisingly dismissive of the power of social networking to effect change. In the latest issue of the New Yorker, he writes that the role played by Facebook and Twitter in recent protests and revolutions has been greatly exaggerated. … ‘We seem to have forgotten what activism is,’ writes Gladwell. If activism is defined only as taking direct action and protesting on the streets, he might be right. But if activism extends to changing the minds of people, to making populations aware of what their governments are doing in their name, to influencing opinion across the world, then the revolution will be indeed be tweeted.”

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

The Past

The birth of childhood: A brief history of the European child

Did the 20th century bring a breakthrough in how children are treated?

Guest Thinkers

A Revolution Has Not Been Televised: Viewers Are Misled When They Are Told Social Media Has Changed the Nature of Activism

In a guest post today, my colleague Paul D’Angelo, a professor of communication at The College of New Jersey, considers how the news media have defined the role of social […]

Guest Thinkers

Happy New Year

It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth). Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay. Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.

Collage of geopolitical symbols, featuring a close-up of a man's bald head, China's flag, a globe highlighting Taiwan, and circuit patterns.

The Present

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Person examining a petri dish with tweezers, holding small colored objects, against a dark background.

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