Researchers have long known that political engagement among young people increases with socioeconomic status—the more privileged the person, the more likely they are to participate in civic matters. But is there another force more powerful than money when it comes to getting young people to engage with the political process? A new study suggests that there is: social media. Young people of any economic background who used social media were more likely to be politically engaged than those who did not.
Michael Xenos of the University of Wisconsin, Ariadne Vromen of the University of Sydney, and Brian D. Loader of the University of York studied political engagement among young people in the United States, Australia and Great Britain. They surveyed a representative sample of people aged 16 to 29 in each country, asking about social media use and acts of civic and political engagement. (They did not ask about voting.) In their study published in Information, Communication & Society, they write, “We find a strong, significant, and robust positive relationship between social media use and political engagement.”
They also write, “Stated plainly, our results suggest that if one were seeking an efficient single indicator of political engagement among young people in the countries studied here, social media use would appear to be as good as, or better than, SES [socioeconomic status].” So watch out—those teenagers using Snapchat and Instagram today might fuel a new wave of political engagement tomorrow.
MORE: Meet the Undocumented Immigrants Who Created an App to Press for Immigration Reform
Tag: social media
How Tweeting Can Help With Teaching
If you can’t beat Generation Smartphone, join them. Many media-savvy teachers have found that using Twitter can actually help enrich their lectures. Take Chris Lazarski’s public policy class at Wauwatosa West High School in Milwaukee. As the AP reports, the teacher uses Twitter to promote dialogue about current events. For example, after a lecture on zero-tolerance policies in high school, he had his students tweet their reactions. Some students tweeted at industry experts, others retweeted articles that shared their opinions.
You might buck at the idea of giving students more time with their phones, but if used correctly, social media can have a whole host of benefits. Students learn the responsibilities of having an online presence at an early age. The #hashtag feature means that anyone in the world with a Twitter handle can join in on the discussion. Twitter can also help shy students who don’t like raising their hands in class find their voice, 140 characters at a time.
Lazarski takes part in the “Do Now” program from San Francisco-based TV station KQED that features weekly Twitter-friendly topics such as elections, politics, and international news. The growing program is now used by more than 120 teachers in California, Oregon, Kentucky, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia and New York.
MORE: Infographic: How Social Media Is Used For Social Good
How 40 Pounds of Leftover Broccoli Sparked a Farm-Friendly Innovation
After a farmer’s market last year, Bloomfield Farms of Sonoma County, Calif. had 40 pounds of organic broccoli left that would soon spoil if it wasn’t used. According to Danielle Venton of High Country News, the farm’s general manager, Nick Papadopoulos, quickly posted a message to Facebook: “We’d love to get this produce to you at a bargain price – who’s in? Text me.” Minutes later, the broccoli found new customers. This experience sparked Papadopoulos’ idea for CropMobster, a start-up that uses social media to prevent food waste and organize donations to food pantries from California growers. CropMobster aids in the organization of gleanings, posting calls for volunteers on its website and through its free app. On January 16, volunteers picked 792 pounds of Satsuma tangerines, which they delivered to seven California food pantries. CropMobster also aims to support farms by helping them sell excess meat and produce at a discount—recent offers include half-price organic beef bones and a bargain on three rams a family farm is looking to sell as it switches its focus to grass-fed beef. So far, CropMobster has saved about 110,000 pounds of produce and generated more than $50,000 in revenue for farmers. Papadopoulos and other volunteers update the CropMobster website from a converted turkey barn on Bloomfield Farms, keeping them close to their agricultural roots even as they focus on technology.
MORE: Why One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Fertilizer
When Immigration Reform Got Stuck in Washington, This Entrepreneur Stepped Up
Tech entrepreneur Joe Green was Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard roommate and Facebook’s sixth user, but he doesn’t share the political disinterest of some of his Silicon Valley colleagues. Having attended the mostly minority Santa Monica High School where he had a lot of undocumented friends, Green ran for the Santa Monica School Board at age 17. He won on a platform promising a living wage for service industry workers, many of whom were immigrants. In college, he studied community organizing with Marshall Ganz, who’d once worked with Cesar Chavez, and discovered parallels between community organizing and social networking. “Community organizing is all about friendships. And the Internet is all about relationships,” Green recently told Elizabeth Lorente of Fox Latino. “I ended up being someone who cares a lot about politics who also worked in tech.”
A co-founder of the company Causes, which uses social media to spur funding for nonprofits, and NationBuilder, which encourages political organizing, Green is now pressing for immigration reform through his political advocacy group FWD.us. He even got his old buddy Zuckerberg to help fund it. The group generates political support for immigration reform, on both sides of the aisle, and also works with immigrants directly. Recently FWD.us sponsored a hackathon for 20 young undocumented programmers, and afterward continued to work with the contest participants.
As Green told Fox Latino, he sees immigration as quintessentially American: “There’s a lot of stuff that America is not the best at, but when you travel around the world you see that America is pro-immigrant. … We are better than almost anybody else at welcoming people from around the world.”
Better Health Through…Texting?
As a diabetic himself, Vineet Singal knows first-hand that being on top of his condition is the key to staying healthy. That’s what inspired him to create his business Anjna Patient Education when he was a senior at Stanford. The company helps people stay in closer contact with their health providers with a simple, text-messaging app that sends appointment and medication reminders and tips on eating better. It’s already been picked up by a few California hospitals. They pay Anina for the app, and then provide it free to their low-income clients. Singal’s app even snagged him a $40,000 Hitachi Foundation Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs Program award this year.
Nonprofit Helps Grandma Understand What You Posted on Facebook Last Night
Your parents have already friended you, and now Grandma might too. A program sponsored by the AARP and the nonprofit Older Adults Technology Services aims to help low-income seniors get online. Each senior participating in the program in Washington D.C. received a free iPad and classes on how to use it, including tips on protecting privacy online, how to get started with social media, and how to manage and interact with the technology, especially for those with shaky hands or a phobia of pop-up windows. Many of the senior participants found that engaging with social media allowed them to get in touch with old friends, find information about their interests, and diminish loneliness and isolation. AARP and Older Adults Technology Services are running a similar class in Sioux Falls, S.D., and evaluating whether to launch it in other cities throughout the country.
Infographic: How Social Media Is Used For Social Good
Bluehost has created a spiffy infographic detailing how social media is being used by people to create positive social outcomes for society. As charities, nonprofits and businesses are becoming more like social enterprises, we’re seeing Americans really care about where their dollars are going. Among the notable statistics:
- 83% of Americans want brands to support causes
- 41% of people bought a product because it was associate with a cause
- >90% of people should be giving in the communities where they do business
The infographic also displays some of the charity campaigns that went viral through social media, including Malaria No More, It Gets Better Project and the World Wildlife Fund.