Small Change: Summary and Response

    Pop culture plays an important role in influencing the way adolescents dress, think, and behave. This pop culture can be dangerous because it has begun to negatively affect teenagers in their character formation period. With the rapid development of today's information age, it is easier to influence teenagers with the emergence of various short video software such as Jitterbug. And short video apps are slowly penetrating everyone's daily life.

    The author of the article, Gladwell, discusses the courageous behavior of four college students and their socially radicalized behavior. Four freshmen from a nearby black college sat down at a lunch counter near Greensboro, N.C., but were denied service because of their race. The four students refused to leave and eventually moved outside the restaurant to launch a protest. The students' story and their protest quickly spread, and people from different states began to join the four boys in their sit-in. The four students' stories were done without the use of any social networks. Social activism requires strong ties rather than weak networks. Gladwell states the different arguments that lead to many valid points of view. He articulates two options: strong and weak ties and the relationship between hierarchical organizations and networks.

    I agree with Gladwell and his idea of social networking. The connections between people in real life are often stronger than online, and the people in the article are often closely connected, such as in the same dorm, the same high school. I think social networking is a way to interact with others and get to know them better in order to find like-minded people. But at the same time, the Internet is a double-edged sword. Some people feel that the Internet is a lawless place, so they speak with impunity behind the keyboard, and cyber-violence can easily occur. Social media doesn't get much consideration, protesters get together and then fall apart, violent attacks are made, extremist messages are conveyed, and the central target is lost. Then if it turns out to be a misunderstanding, the protesters disappear or remain silent as if nothing had happened. The bond between people's actions is their consensus, and once that bond is broken by other ideas, it is a scattered mess. Social media has many pros and cons for the world today. I think social networks can help people communicate more easily and quickly. But the lack of structure or organization is bad, and it can lead to a lot of problems with disinformation, which can be deceptive and costly if believed. Some people who play around on the Internet have hundreds of friends, but of those hundreds of friends, few are strong ties. 

    Pop culture is good for me, because I can deepen my own image of myself through what is popular today, and I can also have a better understanding of the current culture of the society, which for me has already penetrated every aspect of my life. Social networking or pop culture are both double-edged swords, and I need to keep my own opinions and always stick to my own opinions and not be led astray.