I would be a traitor to my generation (to quote Cher Horowitz, a generational icon) if I were to deny society’s absolute inundation by social media. Case in point, I’m a junior in college taking time out of my precious academic and social schedules to generate some astute content for an online forum.

Social media has saturated the ways in which millennials brand themselves, interact with one another, and participate in the community. However, my generation finds itself at a crossroads as progressive technology, which has been a catalyst for the rapid diffusion of ideas and information via platforms necessitating a strong Wi-Fi connection, has also provoked a time of social revolution in America today. Americans are at odds with the “man,” one another, and the dominant social norms.

We’re focusing on racial reconciliation, police brutality, breaking the glass ceiling, and saving the damn whales because technology has heightened our awareness to such issues and we’re – still – hormonal as hell. However, online activism is increasingly proving itself to be an inadequate means of provoking positive change in society today. What effective social revolutions actually necessitate, discipline and strategy, are simply things than online networks cannot provide.

Don’t get me wrong – social media provides an excellent platform for popularizing injustices and raising awareness. According to a Brandwatch analysis, the internet boasts 3.17 billion users, 2.3 billion of which actively use social media. From 2015 to 2016, the latter has increased by 176 million people. Every second, 12 new active mobile social users are added. Although only 24% of Facebook users report looking at posts and photos on any given user’s account, that means that 346 of my 1441 Facebook friends will read this post when I inevitably share it on my profile (in hopes of accumulating likes from my high school teachers and my mom’s friends).

In “Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation,” Joel Stein writes, “The Internet has democratized opportunity for many young people….” Because anyone can access and contribute to an online community, people of marginalized demographics heralding from my generation have the innate opportunity to publicize or comment on any given social justice. Consider what devastated our nation just months ago, when Diamond Reynold broadcast her boyfriend, Philando Castile’s murder by a Minnesota police officer by way of Facebook’s new live-stream option. In “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted,” Malcolm Gladwell explains social media’s affect on evolving constructions of social movements.

He writes, “With [social media], the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns.” Publicity and media attention, which then pressure existing institutions to correct their oppressive ways, comes from high numbers of users rallying around a particular experience. Because the Internet provides a headquarters, of sorts, through which users can publicly condemn an injustice, social media thereby serves as an ideologically and socioeconomically level landscape for a movement.

Before proceeding, though, it is crucial to acknowledge the oppressive symptoms of adhering to online platforms to raise awareness. It is all too easy, protected by the shield of a black screen, to “click” and feign genuine concern. That fake sense of empathy is something that millennials should strive to transcend. However, it is also something that enables members of social networks to cherry-pick injustices which they have not suffered.

Everyone has that token white friend that’s set up shop on a Facebook soapbox preaching about the Black Lives Matter movement, oblivious to the frequency with which he or she drops the n-word. Back in 2011, Stacey Patton published “Why Blacks Aren’t Embracing Occupy Wall Street.” Although she reported that African Americans shared white Americans’ anger about corporate greed and corruption, she quoted Nathalie Thandiwe, an NYC-based radio host and WBAI producer, as saying, “Occupy Wall Street was started by whites and is about their concern with their plight. Now that capitalism isn’t working for ‘everybody,’ some are protesting.” At best, culturally appropriating marginalization has effectively further oppressed the experiences of those actually suffering social injustices. (I plan on addressing this in a future post).

If awareness if the first step to activism, though, and social media excels at raising awareness, then it seems natural that social media would be a catalyst for activism amongst millennials – but that would be too easy.

“Clicktivism” fails to provoke positive change in society. Facebook and Twitter only really solidify “weak ties”: we follow people whom we’ve never met and friend people whom we have met, but blacked out and in a bathroom. In a comparison of those who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964 versus its dropouts, Stanford sociologist Doug McAdam discovered that the key difference was a participant’s degree of personal connection to the movement (as summarized by Gladwell). “High-risk activism, McAdam concluded, is a ‘strong-tie’ phenomenon.” The acquaintance-ships our social networks allow us are incapable of stimulating this.

The consequence of “weak ties” rests in their failure to lead to “high-risk activism.” Gladwell writes, “Activism that challenges the status quo – that attacks deeply rooted problems – is not for the faint of heart.” Frankly, I don’t understand the point of activism if it it fails to wholeheartedly attack the core of any injustice. Activism is, by its nature, intrinsically linked to challenged the status quo and the oppressive social norms that marginalize our equals. This faintness is all too easy to which to fall victim behind the safety of a screen or the guise of inauthentic concern. Such anonymity parallels the lack of accountability that social media boasts. Gladwell writes, “Social networks are effective at increasing participation – by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires.” As the risk associated with activism lessens, the rate of participation increases. For instance, to use Gladwell’s example, look at exerted effort which donating bone marrow necessitates. It necessitates neither financial nor personal risk, nor jet-setting to a developing country with the expectation of being pursued by armed militants, nor confronting deep-rooted social norms. If nothing else, “…it’s the kind of commitment that will bring only social acknowledge and praise.” Because social media allows users to edit the content which they publicize, users have the sovereignty to exclusively share their contributions to society with the expectations of garnering likes and shares. Because millennials have essentially been trained by technology to quantify themselves by their online popularity, this brand of pseudo-activism is frequently motivated by users seeking compliments rather than supporting a cause. The low risks and narcissism in which weak ties result means that “Facebook activism” motivates users to do what is done when they lack the motivation to make a tangible sacrifice or engage in high-risk activism.

High-risk activism is nothing without strategic activism, which social networks cannot possibly enable. This strategic approach necessitates both a hierarchical organization and control over a movement’s participants. When a movement for change is hierarchically organized, centralized leadership with the power to delegate responsibilities and hold individuals accountable, in turn maximizing the group’s impact. In the midst of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. was the undisputed leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which organized the acts of civil disobedience that ultimately pressured the federal government into formally correcting its segregationist ways. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the undisputed leader of the movement for women’s rights, which earned suffrage in 1919 upon the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment. Because the rules and procedures of networks lack the control of a hierarchy, networks struggle to reach consensus or set objectives for their movements. Gladwell contributes, “…networks are messy: think of of the ceaseless pattern of correction and revision, amendment and debate….” What makes a social movement successful is discipline and strategy, and social networks are incapable of achieving this.

So, what does this mean for us – the millennials, the online subscribers, my mom’s friends who are reading this because she will inevitably share it to her Facebook, too? What does this mean for me, because I’m contradicting myself by even speaking out about clicktivism online and clearly doing something tangible about it? In a little over a week, this election cycle will culminate in the 2016 presidential election. Early voting is open in Texas until November 4, and election day is scheduled for November 8. It is up to my generation, to my fellow millennials, to decide upon the future of our country and its oppressive social norms. “This May Be the Last Presidential Election Dominated by Boomers and Prior Generations,” written by Richard Fry for the Pew Research Center, has the numbers to prove it: whereas millennials and Gen-X’ers constituted only 44% of the electorate in the 2012 election, this time around, we’ve exceeded the number of Baby Boomers and members of prior generations eligible to vote by 28 million. Obviously, these numbers don’t account for voter turnout, but the impetus is now upon us to use our majority and our voice and our activist obligations to actually provoke a positive change. Don’t restrict your political ideology to 140 characters; rather, let it resonate as a vote cast towards your preferred presidential candidate, as a voice of our generation, as a engaged member of society advocating a movement towards equality. The responsibility is ours now – do something about it.