Paul Daniel's Views On The World, For What They're Worth

The ever growing popularity of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook has resulted in people taking up a lot more causes. Recent examples of this are the campaign to change a Twitter avatar to green as a form of protest against the alleged rigging of the Iran elections, and a plethora of Facebook groups ranging from bushfires, to cancer, to dogs as shark bait, etc.

Unfortunately, all this has achieved is to make it easy for people to claim they are supporting a cause, when all they are really doing is making a couple of mouse clicks on a computer. Tokenism!

In most cases, they are appropriate causes for people to support. Indeed, I’ve joined a whole bunch of them myself. And I’m as guilty of tokenism.

Isn’t it time for us to get a bit more genuine, a bit more serious about our support for appropriate causes? If we’re concerned about bushfires, as a minimum we should be donating money. But why not contribute some time to organisations like SES, CFA or Red Cross? Or a myriad of other organisations who are currently providing support to those impacted by the fires?

If we’re concerned about Iran, then why not donate to Amnesty International? Or better still, why not give them some of our time? Dogs? RSPCA. Cancer? Get out there and actively support the vast range of support organisations.

Next time you think about starting or joining a cause on Twitter, Facebook or the like, why not make sure it’s a group where you can say I actively did something for that cause. We need more people who are genuine about the causes they support and not just mouse clickers.

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