Social Networks and Social Change: Why Gladwell Doesn't Get It

Last week the prince of pop psychology, Malcolm Gladwell, wrote a New Yorker piece titled "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted." With characteristic adeptness (I am in love with this man's style) he argues that social networks like Twitter and Facebook create "weak-ties," casual relationships among acquaintances that do not lend themselves to the strong bonds of friendship which allow people to bind together to enact high-risk social change, such as the lunch counter sit-ins which sparked the American Civil Rights movement. Gladwell accurately points out that the roll played by Twitter and other social networks in recent movements such as the 2009 election protests in Iran has been vastly overstated.

But in arguing his case, Gladwell makes an error which I think reflects a common misunderstanding about social networking, one that perhaps even the creators of the most popular social networks in existence are just now beginning to sort out. It's succinctly expressed in the following quote from the piece:

The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand “friends” on Facebook, as you never could in real life.

This simply isn't true. My friend and go-to expert on social networking, web entrepreneur Rob Johnson, was the first to point this out to me almost a year ago. People do not primarily use Facebook and Twitter to amass acquaintances. They use these tools to dive deeper into the lives of people they already know. Think about it. If you're a Facebook user, do you spend most of your time on the site expanding your network of friends or scanning your news feed to keep up with the handful of people you know and love well? For me and I believe most people, it's the latter.

The folks behind Facebook have begun to figure this out, and slowly tweak their service in this direction. Not too long ago they added the ability to "hide" updates from people in your news feed, and recently removed the 200 friend limit on this feature. Even more recently they released their new Groups feature, which rather than encouraging users to share information more publicly, moves in the opposite direction, allowing them to share information among certain exclusive groups. I believe this is evidence that all the privacy backlash the Facebook folks have experienced has made them realize that people don't want to share more things with more people. They want to share more things with less people. (I can only hope Twitter will realize this soon, although the way the service is built lends itself more towards broadcasting to a group of followers than connecting with friends. Myspace is doomed.)

This is where Gladwell gets it wrong. If we view social networks not as weak-tie friend collectors but as tools or mediums to bridge gaps in geography and lifestyle to connect with our closest friends, it is easy to see how Facebook or Twitter might have greased the wheels of social change in the 1960's, had they been available. Social networking would have allowed tight groups of committed protesters to collectively communicate at the speed of light. It's hard for me to imagine how this would have had anything but a positive effect on achieving their goals. This is why so many governments (such as China and Iran) have moved quickly to limit or shutdown social networking during times of social unrest.

I do not consider myself a social networking evangelist. Most of the reaction to Gladwell's article from social network advocates has been to point out various high-risk social movements which have allegedly been fostered by social networking. I am hesitant to point to any social network as a primary breeding ground for social change. I still believe "all great change in America begins at the dinner table." But that doesn't mean these networks are irrelevant to high-risk social movements. We must see social networks as what they are: tools. Tools that are enabling people around the world to do great things by spreading infectious messages among their small circle of connected friends—their "tribes," to use a popular term. Missing this perspective is why this time, Gladwell doesn't get it.